The audience was still shaken by the afterglow of "Coronal Radiance."
And the entire internet, following this shock, began to quake as well.
From Witter to Frontbook, from Stargram to Geddit, from Heibo to Dyin.
The internet was once again dominated by a three-minute-and-twenty-three-second PV.
Tags related to "Coronal Radiance" were everywhere.
And it wasn't just dominating the rankings. Many of the smaller social media platforms were actually overloaded and crashed outright.
This really wasn't an exaggeration. The explosion of "Coronal Radiance" had to be viewed together with all the traffic and buildup accumulated since the release of Amphoreus.
And at "Coronal Radiance," all of that finally erupted in a brief burst.
Related discussions rapidly formed a traffic black hole on the internet, devouring the attention and traffic that originally belonged to other entertainment products.
That made things miserable for all the entertainment products that happened to be released on this day.
Originally, in order to avoid Honkai: Star Rail, the people in charge of these entertainment companies had already studied MiHoYo's announcements and release cycles.
They were certain that the one or two weeks after miHoYo's broadcast week ended would be an absolutely safe period.
Even if miHoYo released some PVs or something in between. It wouldn't matter.
Their shows could still achieve decent results within those one or two weeks. After all, they were only PVs, just a few minutes long. Even if some traffic was diverted, it would only be temporary.
Then tell me, what does it mean for a PV to completely crush their traffic? Many people involved in the industry hurriedly opened the internet.
What greeted their eyes were dense masses of tags everywhere.
#TheTruthOfTheCycleOfReincarnation#
#TheFiresmithAndPhainon#
#DivinePhainon#
#IsAmphoreusReallyARomanticStory#
#CantSleepTonight#
#BlowUpMiHoYosHeadquarters#
#PhainonsEnding#
One hour passed... Two hours passed...
Yet the heat of the discussions remained sky-high, and instead showed an even more terrifying upward trend.
This was completely different from the traffic curves of the previous PVs! Those with a direct stake in the matter were completely dumbfounded.
Did it really have to be this ridiculous?! They had more access than ordinary viewers, and could obtain real-time data.
But the figures in the reports were even more outrageous.
Phainon's PV... was rapidly breaking all kinds of internet records.
Number of views. Number of views within a single hour. Total viewing time within a single hour.
And the effect of the traffic black hole was becoming even more obvious.
Even people who had absolutely no interest in Honkai: Star Rail were choosing to click in and take a look because of the insane domination of the rankings and the PV's short runtime.
The PV's outstanding quality and shocking presentation. Even passersby who knew absolutely nothing about the story were deeply shaken.
Then they would join the discussions as well. This herd mentality turned the traffic black hole into a genuine phenomenon.
Everyone's time and attention were limited. What entertainment products had to do was compete for users' time.
But after "Coronal Radiance" aired, on webpages, everywhere was that image of yellow haired Phainon.
People watched this young man from a fictional world burn himself like the sun. Fans went crazy because of it.
But in the eyes of another group of people, such as those working in the entertainment industry, Phainon in that image didn't look like the sun at all.
There was no warmth to be found. There was only darkness.
Far too much fucking darkness! How were the others supposed to survive this?!
Beneath the overwhelming popularity, there were also massive amounts of related discussion.
One particular post had an extremely high number of views, and its discussion was also very in-depth.
It was titled: "We've All Been Deceived. Reincarnation Is Absolutely Not Hope!"
"We always thought that recreating the world could save it, and that it was the only way to rebuild the world."
"Because all of us believed that the reincarnation of Amphoreus was a spiral ascending upward."
"History repeated itself, but overall, it was progressing. It was moving toward a brighter future."
"Only after watching 'Coronal Radiance' did I realize that this was completely in line with miHoYo's narrative trajectory."
"Because the most crucial part, the connection between Phainon and the Flame Reaver who stole the Coreflame, we have never truly understood it. And the truth of reincarnation is hidden within the relationship between these two people!!"
"MiHoYo is too damn cunning! They're also way too good at writing."
"From the very first episode, the story of the Chrysos Heirs placed us into a fixed perspective. Forget about us for a moment; even from the standpoint of the Chrysos Heirs, recreating the world was the only hope."
"That was how the oracle described it, and the central conflict of the entire story revolved around the Flame-Chase Journey."
"MiHoYo then used its depiction of the relationship between the Titans and the Chrysos Heirs to naturally make us believe that this world developed linearly. Every generation would have a Chrysos Heir who would become a Titan, and then continue to carry this world forward."
"But if you think about it carefully, you'll discover that since reincarnation exists, the existence of the Flame Reaver, who can be identified as another Phainon, is the only bug in this logic!"
"If it is a linear cycle of reincarnation, then it is fundamentally impossible for two identical people to appear!"
"This should have been the biggest flaw. However, miHoYo once again used an extremely cunning technique to firmly reinforce the conclusion we had subconsciously rejected."
"And that was the death of Cipher!"
"I believe everyone still remembers the scene of Cipher's death. Such a great hero who gave Amphoreus almost a thousand years time. Aside from the memories shown, Cipher's death happened in an instant! The Flame Reaver who killed her only took a few seconds to kill Cipher and turn around and leave!"
"Our instincts made us reject the idea that this Flame Reaver was Phainon. We imagined that there had to be some other reason why this Flame Reaver acted this way."
"Why did we think that?!"
"Because miHoYo fucking planted the trap for us in the very first episode!"
"When we first met Phainon, everyone was captivated by this clear-eyed boy who valued his companions and their bonds above all else."
"Who still remembers what everyone called him back then? Everyone called him the pure-hearted college boy!"
"The story that followed further deepened Phainon's personality, and our love for him increased accordingly. The better our impression of Phainon became, the more it turned into a mental imprint that made it impossible for us to accept that the Flame Reaver who 'might' be Phainon would mercilessly kill Cipher!"
"And so, we made excuses for ourselves and ignored the biggest flaw."
The post's analysis was extremely detailed.
And after reading it, countless fans were left with their heads buzzing.
It was terrifying! Truly terrifying.
The most terrifying part of this whole thing was that miHoYo had used an extremely sophisticated technique.
First of all, the flaw and bug in the reincarnation system had been there all along.
But MiHoYo, through their long-term characterization of Phainon, made the audience dislike and resist the Flame Reaver, thereby creating this miraculous situation where the truth was right in front of everyone, yet they simply refused to believe it.
The audience would even actively ignore this possibility. Until everything was unveiled by the Coronal Radiance.
Fans were left with chills... This foreshadowing, this little detail hidden here, was actually deeply buried.
By getting the audience emotionally invested, the eventual payoff of the foreshadowing becomes even more shocking and impactful.
That kind of experience can only be achieved through long-term buildup. Character development isn't necessarily meant to make the audience suffer when a character leaves.
It may also be hiding some other little details and clever ideas. But when it comes to MiHoYo, it could very well be killing two birds with one stone.
In the comments on this section of the post, fans also expressed their feelings one after another.
...
: Phew... Now that an expert has explained it like this, everything has suddenly connected.
: Other than 'holy shit,' I genuinely don't know what to say anymore.
: The whole 'snake in the grass, gray threads' thing... the foreshadowing really went way too deep.
: MiHoYo! You bastard! You actually managed to make us deceive ourselves?!
: This time, everyone really got completely fooled by MiHoYo.
: I wouldn't exactly call it fooling us. After all, the answer was right there in the question. Ever since the Flame Reaver appeared, once everyone discovered his connection to Phainon, we should actually have been able to figure out the true nature of the cycle.
: Exactly. We just couldn't accept the Flame Reaver's actions. At the time, I kept thinking, 'This definitely isn't Phainon. There must be some conspiracy behind the Flame Reaver.'
: Right, right, right. I actually imagined that the Flame Reaver was a blood relative of Phainon, or perhaps the result of some kind of genetic modification or something, haha. It's ridiculous, but at the time I was willing to believe anything rather than accept that the person committing all those atrocities was Phainon.
: Actually, if the Flame Reaver had shown even the slightest hesitation when killing the Chrysos Heirs, I might have believed that Phainon and the Flame Reaver were one and the same.
: Ugh... There's nothing we can do. Even now, when I think back to Cipher's death, my heart still aches. The Flame Reaver acted just way too cold-bloodedly...
...
Next. The content of the post went into a detailed analysis of the cycle.
"And now, the foreshadowing has been unveiled."
"After all the smoke and mirrors have disappeared. We can see that the cycle we are witnessing is being presented from Phainon's perspective."
"At the beginning of the Coronal Radiance PV, the ways those Chrysos Heirs died were all things we had never seen before. They were completely different from what happened in the main story."
"But MiHoYo can't possibly be some kind of fictional historian who deliberately put segments of imagined events in there just to fool the fans."
"The only possibility is that this was some cycle that 'Phainon' had experienced in the past. Why did I put quotation marks around 'Phainon'? That brings us back to what I just said: the cycle isn't linear. It's a circle."
"Right now, I don't even know which period of Phainon the Phainon in the PV actually is. Which part of the cycle does he belong to?"
"And then there is the Flame Reaver whom we have been cursing and condemning all this time."
"No matter how unwilling we are to accept the Flame Reaver slaughtering the Chrysos Heirs, we have to understand... the Flame Reaver really is Phainon."
"The kind, compassionate Phainon we saw in the main story, the one who carries the dreams of the world upon himself, is real."
"And the Flame Reaver who massacres the Chrysos Heirs as casually as drinking tea is also real."
"What is missing from that part may contain the truth of the cycle, the truth that we find too difficult to face."
"Going back to the title: the change from Phainon into the Flame Reaver, as well as the Flame Reaver's attitude, should make everyone wonder what exactly happened to cause Phainon to undergo such an enormous transformation."
"All I can say is that only pain more despairing than despair itself could make someone change this much."
"What is the truth? I don't know. I can only speculate."
"But ever since Amphoreus began, MiHoYo has really started going all out."
"Honkai: Star Rail's main story is divided into different arcs, from the Space Station all the way to the end of Amphoreus. During this period, the length of each arc was fairly fixed, with basically three episodes being enough to complete an arc."
"But now that we've reached Amphoreus, let alone the full length, I estimate that even half of Amphoreus hasn't been explored despite the amount of content packed into these three episodes."
"That scale represents MiHoYo's enormous ambitions."
"But what exactly are they trying to do? I can't figure it out. I can't even guess what direction the fourth episode will take."
"Yet as I write this, what I feel isn't fear or terror."
"I know there may be even more painful moments ahead, even greater sorrow, but along with that will also come scenery and wonders I have never seen before."
"Pure unknown brings the purest desire."
"I long to see a story that no one has ever seen before."
"Amphoreus's completely different narrative and scale compared with the previous arcs, the even more outrageous placement of foreshadowing, and this insane amount of material... I have to warn everyone,"
"The fourth episode... may be absolutely crazy."
...
This poster's analysis was quite impressive. It could be said that, through speculation alone, they had already sensed part of the story's overall structure.
They had also sensed that the truth concerning Phainon would be absolutely insane.
The fans' reactions were also almost identical to the poster's final paragraph.
...
: That's so well said. Even if the cycle is incredibly despairing, I can't stop myself from watching anymore.
: AAAAAAAAAH! Exactly! Watching Amphoreus up to this point feels like I'm standing right on the edge of a cliff, but I just can't stop myself from jumping!
: Don't say that! Come with us!
: Curiosity, curiosity! My damn curiosity! AAAAAAH! I really, really want to know the truth behind Phainon and the Flame-Chasing Journey!
: What exactly is the story of Episode Four going to be like? How does MiHoYo manage to show us so much content while leaving us knowing absolutely nothing about the future, yet somehow always making us even more curious?
: Phew... I definitely won't be able to sleep tonight. Until Episode Four comes out, I'm probably going to spend every night tossing and turning, imagining the story behind Phainon and wondering where this journey of chasing the flames will ultimately lead.
: But no matter what happens, we'll keep walking alongside Little Bai. Whether the road ahead leads to destruction or hope.
: Come on! I'm ready! I want to see just how crazy Episode Four can get!!