On the screen.
After Rupert's figure completely disappeared.
Everything related to the Mechanical Emperor's Wars came to a full stop.
The First Mechanical Emperor's War.
The Second Mechanical Emperor's War.
These two cosmos-sweeping wars, before this Myriad Celestia Trailer aired had given rise to endless speculation.
All lines of thought were focused on the shocking scale of cosmic warfare.
It was only after seeing the real inside story that audiences suddenly realized behind the wars were so many layers of schemes and emotions.
When the surface of war faded away, what remained in the viewers' minds was only Rupert's life that began in a scrapyard.
What made countless people feel suffocated was that Rupert's entire life, aside from these observers watching from outside the screen, was unknown to the people of the Honkai: Star Rail universe.
His life. His wisdom, his sensitivity, his effort, and his lifelong struggle against fate.
In the Honkai: Star Rail world, all of it was reduced to a single sentence.
Rupert was a brutal inorganic Emperor, an evil Tyrant.
The feeling was like fully understanding a poem, only for it to be passed down to later generations with nothing left but the title.
All meaning was crudely erased. All proof of Rupert as a "life" was denied.
Instead, the viewers became the final witnesses.
They knew the truth, yet could not pass through the screen to tell the people within the Honkai: Star Rail universe.
For the first time, the audience experienced an extreme emotion, an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.
In a way, their feelings at this moment were almost the same as Rupert's when he faced the script itself.
They could not clear Rupert's name.
They could only watch helplessly as everything about him was distorted and misinterpreted over time, washed away by the current of history.
And those beings truly hidden behind the scenes, pushing all of this forward still hidden behind everything.
Many people thought of the meaning Rupert had pursued from the very beginning, the meaning of his own existence.
This theme seemed to run through all the Paths of Honkai: Star Rail.
In the end, what Rupert found was an incomparably emotional, kind, and positive goal.
And yet Rupert's essence and inner self were completely unknown in the Honkai: Star Rail universe.
They were even thoroughly twisted. If a life became like this, then where did the meaning of its existence truly lie?
The audience sitting in front of the screen felt especially unwilling to accept it.
Simple people always believe that good is rewarded with good, and evil with evil. They always feel that the truth will eventually come to light.
But Rupert's story was a crushing blow to that expectation.
So much so that they didn't even know whom to vent these negative emotions toward, even by the very end of the story.
There was never a clear answer as to what exactly drove all of this.
Was it a catastrophe caused by the Aeons?
Or a man-made disaster?
Or both?
Emptiness. Powerlessness. Disillusionment.
These were the feelings in the audience's hearts after watching Rupert's life.
....
: What an Mechanical Emperor War.
: Watching this really made me depressed.
: The main thing is, Rupert's ending doesn't even count as an ending.
: Damn it, what kind of bullshit space comedy is this?
: After finishing this, Rupert as a character is completely etched into my brain.
: Exactly. This character is written way too solidly, way too complex.
: I feel awful. I don't even know why it hurts this much. I just feel Rupert didn't deserve an ending like this.
: The worst part is, damn it, you can't even find an enemy to hate. Putting myself in Rupert's position gives me chills.
: Will Rupert's plan succeed in the end?
: No idea. Even Rupert himself didn't know. He handed everything over to possibility, he was gambling.
: I really wish Rupert had lived in the current era. If it were that time, he definitely would've found a genius who could help him!
: Speaking of which, with a plot involving geniuses like this, why didn't Herta show up?
: Honkai: Star Rail only just revealed the real Herta recently. Do you really expect her to appear that often?
...
As the comments continued to discuss the timeline kept moving forward.
The visuals flickered across different Emperor Scepters.
After the war, these scepters were collected by various factions, most of them taken in by the IPC.
They were used for all kinds of theoretical calculations.
And as the Intelligentsia Guild grew stronger and as the power of Erudition developed across the universe.
Many different schools of thought emerged. The screen then froze on a forgotten scepter.
Several massive words appeared before the audience.
[The Scholars' Strife Erupts.]
Another war?
The audience wondered.
But immediately after, no detailed scenes of the Scholars' Strife appeared.
Instead, the story jumped ahead to many Amber Eras later.
To a place that felt strangely familiar to the viewers. A device brimming with technology was emitting a dim blue glow.
The Simulated Universe! The audience's eyes lit up instantly.
The last Swarm Disaster had begun in the Simulated Universe.
Many people had already felt that for a massive event like the Swarm Disaster, it was strange not to use Herta's Simulated Universe to present it.
And now, Herta had finally appeared.
On screen, Herta stood before the Simulated Universe, muttering mysterious words to herself.
"The Scholars' Strife really is shrouded in fog."
"Even when calculated through the Simulated Universe, it's full of hollowness."
"It all reeks of 'mystery.'"
"Hmph, but the more it's like this, the more curious I become."
"I want to see the true face of the Scholars' Strife."
The story did not present the full picture of the Scholars' Strife.
Instead, through Herta's words, it told the audience.
That this period of history was also steeped in obscurity.
And with Herta's appearance. A clear timeline formed in the audience's minds.
Rupert's birth, First Mechanical Emperor's War, Second Mechanical Emperor's War, Scholars' Strife, now.
Running through all of it were Rupert and his final wish.
The Emperor Scepter. Just as the audience was preparing to witness what might be another unexpected War.
The Myriad Celestia Trailer came to an end.
This was a division planned long ago by Xia Wen.
For Xia Wen this trailer itself was meant to complete Amphoreus.
The story of the Emperor Scepter and Rupert. And, along the way, to help the audience sort out the universe's timeline.
As for the Scholars' Strife, a brief mention was enough, it would be saved for the next Myriad Celestia Trailer.
After all, the stories involving Polka Kakamond and Herta were not suitable to be laid out in full just yet.
On the contrary.
Releasing the content of the Scholars' Strife before the conclusion of Amphoreus, before Herta's moment in the spotlight, actually helps the audience better feel the charm of Herta.
It also conveniently fills in the related settings of the Genius Society.
And although the audience still felt unsatisfied, Rupert's story alone was already enough for them to digest for quite a while.
Not long after the Myriad Celestia Trailer ended, among the various discussions everywhere about this story, Rupert's tale quickly became one of the most memorable to audiences.
It involved the complex power struggles among Aeons, as well as the hidden currents beneath the surface.
Of course, one topic was also extremely popular.
That was whether releasing this Myriad Celestia Trailer during Amphoreus carried some deeper meaning.
Did Rupert's story have any connection to Amphoreus?
But all of this, the audience could only impatiently wait until the Amphoreus arc officially began to draw a conclusion.
...
Inside MiHoYo.
Aglaea and the others had also finished watching this Myriad Celestia Trailer.
"Phew..."
"What a magnificent cosmic journey."
"So this is how our settings were woven into the Honkai: Star Rail universe."
"Truly ingenious." Aglaea thought to herself.
Amphoreus and the Scepter, the Scepter and Rupert, they were connected across a long stretch of time without the slightest sense of discord.
In fact, the two were not that tightly linked to begin with.
Over the long passage of time, just as Rupert had originally hoped, he wished that the Scepter would no longer have anything to do with him.
And that was indeed how things turned out.
Only on a certain conceptual level did they seem to converge onto the same path both searching for different ways forward for life.
Just as Aglaea was digesting these realizations, a message suddenly arrived on her phone, making her expression change.
...
Elsewhere.
A pink-haired girl had also finished watching Rupert's story.
"Oh my, I really loved this one."
Cyrene looked at the ending on the screen and smiled with a soft giggle.
She then bounced to her feet.
Her room was covered with character portraits and posters.
Looking closely they were all images of the people of Okhema Theater.
Even the rarely seen Hysilens and Cerydra were there.
Humming a tune, Cyrene stuffed her neatly packed belongings into a suitcase.
Then she sat by the bed, swinging her legs, and pulled out three thick notebooks.
Opening them, the pages were filled with her diary entries and photographs.
They were all photos she had taken when attending Okhema Theater's performances.
As Cyrene looked through them, memories in her mind drifted back to the third time she went to see Okhema Theater perform.
It felt like a long time ago.
Back then, Okhema Theater was still unknown. Their very first performance had even been more of a welfare show.
There were only a handful of audience members. And Cyrene was one of the few sitting below the stage.
For some reason, she alone resonated deeply with the performance on stage.
From that day on she fell in love with everything about Okhema Theater.
As long as there was a performance, she would almost always attend.
Yet, for reasons unknown, Cyrene was always the most inconspicuous person in the crowd, the least noticed.
And she would always watch quietly until the very end, then leave quietly as well.
In her exchanges with the theater, she mostly relied on letters.
Compared to Cyrene, who attended in person, the name "Elysia" in written correspondence was actually quite famous among Okhema Theater.
Everyone knew her as a long-time supporter. It wasn't that Okhema Theater failed to respect a loyal fan of ten years.
Rather, that was simply Cyrene's personality.
Compared to being a participant, she was more like a recorder.
The truest and most moving moments often appear when the observed subject is unaware.
When she was present at the scene watching a performance, she would instinctively choose an unremarkable corner, blending herself into the environment.
What Cyrene practiced was this belief: observation and memory are themselves the most profound form of participation.
Only when writing letters did Cyrene freely express her thoughts and opinions.
In the eyes of the people of Okhema Theater, the Cyrene they knew through letters was a brilliant, insightful old friend whose soul resonated with theirs.
Who would have thought that the real-life Cyrene was actually a lively pink-haired beauty.
Not to mention Cyrene's rather unique hobby.
Cyrene closed the memory-filled notebooks, then revealed a sly, slightly excited smile.
Whenever she saw Aglaea and Cipher appear together, Cyrene's mind would instantly spin out ten thousand self-insert stories.
As for Tribios and Hyacine, it was even more outrageous.
In short anything related to the theater could become a memory in Cyrene's eyes.
Her love for Okhema Theater had already gone far beyond what common sense could comprehend.
But whenever she thought about these things, she still felt a little embarrassed.
"Ahem, b-but I'm just thinking about it in my head. That should be fine, right?"
After coughing lightly Cyrene suppressed her thoughts.
She took out her phone and checked her email.
Ever since Okhema Theater had been acquired, Cyrene had no longer been able to see their performances.
So she made a bold decision.
Compared to her previous role as an observer, this time, she chose to truly participate.
Not long ago Cyrene had submitted a job application to MiHoYo.
She hoped to join the company. However, the application she sent out seemed to vanish without a trace.
Cyrene had already prepared herself, if MiHoYo still didn't reply, she would move near MiHoYo and continue being a diehard Okhema Theater fan up close!
Just as Cyrene opened her inbox, an email from MiHoYo appeared conspicuously at the very top.
The content was extremely simple.
Only a single sentence:
"Amphoreus is in danger, please come at once!"
Attached was a full set of MiHoYo's onboarding arrangements.
"Eh?" Cyrene blinked.
Should she say as expected of a big company?
After joining, the benefits were this good, everything from train tickets to plane tickets was fully covered.
But what did "Amphoreus is in danger, please come at once" even mean?
Completely baffled, Cyrene didn't think it had anything to do with her being special.
She simply assumed it was the standard benefits/ perks of a company like MiHoYo.
---------
T/N: Not sure if she is the younger Cyrene or the older one.