Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

’What a garbage lineup...’

Sunny scowled as he walked through the lightless corridors of the abandoned mansion. His thoughts circled around his team — or rather, the three girls he was meant to babysit.

Going back to the very beginning, there were two reasons why Sunny agreed to this community service, as Jing Yuan had called it. The first was simple and practical; he wanted Memories as compensation for his help against the Mara-Struck and Phantylia. However, he ended up destroying the Artisanship Commission’s Creation Furnace when he was dealing with the Ambrosial Arbor’s roots, which put a dent in his plans...

Instead, Jing Yuan had offered to make sure that Sunny wouldn’t be found responsible for the Creation Furnace’s destruction, which not only put a halt in the Luofu’s mass production of Memories for the Cloud Knights, but also released dozens of Heliobi to wreak havoc across the spaceship world.

But no! Sunny naturally declined, instead opting to accept any lowly community service for the chance to get his hands on a bunch of Memories. He knew it wasn’t quite necessary, what with the deal he made with SoundlessHeaven granting him access to any unused Memories she could get her hands on, but everyone knew that Greed was a virtue.

That was the practical reason for agreeing with this. The secondary reason was much more personal, and greatly affected how easily Sunny agreed to this arrangement.

The damn Heliobi!

Sunny was a very spiteful being. It was in his very nature, and it was the only thing keeping him alive in a world that strived to kill him in the most horrific ways possible. Moreover, he wasn’t one to forget. In fact, the Nightmare Spell made a very grave mistake when granting him War God’s Divine Lineage, making it so that every little detail of every single moment was recorded in his mind...

Well, up until recently. For some reason, his memories have been getting filled with inconsistent holes — something he only noticed due to the contrast from his usually perfect recollection.

The point was that Sunny never forgets those who’ve wronged him, nor the ones who did him right. He wouldn’t forget about the time his mind got violated and pried open by a malevolent Lord Ravager, either. It wasn’t everyday someone met a Supreme Titan after all, much less becoming the target of their malice.

Against his own Will, his hand rose, scratching at the skin of his neck for a moment before he forced it down. Whenever he recalled Phantylia’s invasion of his mind and body, he had the urge to scratch his skin, to rip it apart and pull out whatever was hiding inside. Luckily, he never hurt himself by doing so, usually being able to stop himself before he put in too much of his Ascended might.

The thing about Emanators was that anyone or anything can become one, whether it was an inanimate object or a literal worm. The gaze of an Aeon held power, perhaps because THEY became such incomprehensible forces that the very essence of reality bent under nothing but THEIR observation. It was a little concerning, knowing that Sunny himself drew power from a few of THEM.

Clearly, the Aeons didn’t have very high standards. His examples from earlier were real examples, in fact. Once, a worm became an Emanator of Elation, simply because Aha, the Aeon of that Path, thought it would be funny to see if it could make it into the Genius Society.

Obviously, not much. It was just a worm, after all, and merely giving it access to the Path wouldn’t change its nature that much. That was like giving a dog car keys and expecting it to learn how to drive on its own. It would likely be different if an Aeon directly intervened... though, that usually only happened upon THEIR rise to Aeonhood. In fact, it was as if THEY were limited in what THEY could do, whether due to the existence of other Aeons, or something else.

In any case, Sunny was a little concerned about the fact that Sparkle herself was an Emanator of Elation.

Actually, he was very concerned.

Concerned for his own life. Who knew what kind of situation her whimsy could put him in?

...He then remembered that he still didn’t have her number. It was all Seele’s fault for disappearing.

Getting back on topic, Aeons usually had a tendency to gaze at humans. Perhaps it was because humans were intelligent lifeforms, and thus were able to comprehend the profundities of a Path and truly embark on one. On more rarer occasions, Aeons would grant THEIR power non-humans, such as the worm... or Nightmare Creatures, apparently. This, of course, excluded the beings who were directly born from a Path, such as the golden-blooded soldiers of the Antimatter Legion or the creatures born from the never-ending growth of the Abundance.

Phantylia was a Heliobus — plural form Heliobi — and was thus considered a creature born from the Abundance itself. The Mara-Struck, on the other hand, were lifeless vessels containing the uncontainable pressure of the Abundance after their souls have reached their expiration date.

At the same time, however... Phantylia was an Emanator of Destruction. Her claim to that Path was arguably greater than that of the Abundance. With the latter, she was simply born from it, wielding a very miniscule — though insidious — fragment of Yaoshi’s immortal blessing, allowing her to become unkillable just like the rest of her kind... well, not unkillable. Immune to both physical and soul damage, rather.

But with the former... Sunny wasn’t too sure. Perhaps her attacks had been dealing more damage than usual, back when they fought at the Ambrosial Arbor. He would never know, because Phantylia had been overconfident, holding back her strength to savor the feeling of toying with pitiful humans such as themselves.

In the end, that only led to her losing the powerful vessel she gained from the Abundance... but Sunny wasn’t done with her. He wasn’t so merciful as to let her off just by killing her once. No, no, no...

He had to extend the honor to the rest of her Heliobi brethren! Each and every one of those troublemakers — he doubted they were just troublemakers — were little Phantylias in the making. If the first Heliobus he met was evil, then the rest of them had to at least be on the same level, right? That’s what you get with filthy non-humans, daring to infringe on their HUMAN rights. They weren’t Foxians or Vidyadhara, who had some non-human features.

No, those Heliobi don’t deserve the privilege of forgiveness! They shall pay for the sins of the Lord Ravager, whether they liked it or not!

...And that was why Sunny was doing this. To get Memories and revenge.

He didn’t expect to get put with three people he knew — well, one person he knew, one person he used to know, and one person someone he knew knows.

And they were all incompetent.

Says a lot about the people he surrounded himself with, huh?