Star Rail： Chant of the Terminal Paradise

The starship Resplendent tore through the veil of deep space, its engines humming against the boundless silence. On the bridge, Estelle gazed at the swirling nebulae beyond the warp tunnel. The steady pulse of the engines did nothing to calm the turbulence within him. The horrors of Rotstar-7 replayed in his mind – the crystallized wreckage, the twisted sigils, the mad ramblings etched in Kay's own tainted blood.

The image of Kay, once the Order's sturdiest bulwark, laughing amidst gore, cut deeper than any blade.

"Commander, approaching target coordinates," Lykai's deep voice cut through his thoughts. The centaur stood at the sensor console, his silver-white mane catching the dim bridge lights, his expression grave. "Scans confirm Kay's energy trail terminates here. Planet designation: Vale of Sighs."

He brought up the holographic display. The planet below was shrouded in perpetual twilight. Vast fungal forests glowed with a sickly bioluminescence, their towering caps dripping viscous black sap.

Jagged obsidian peaks thrust through the canopy like broken fangs. Mercury-like rivers snaked through valleys choked with crystalline undergrowth. The atmosphere shimmered with suspended particles, refracting the distant sun's weak light into eerie, shifting auroras.

"Initial scans show heavy Antimatter Legion infestation concentrated around geothermal fissures – likely tapping planetary energy," Lykai continued, his tone analytical yet strained.

"Concurrently detecting multiple energy signatures inconsistent with Legion tech. Low yield, kinetic-based weaponry... life signs clustered in subterranean networks. Scattered, but persistent."

"Resistance?" Estelle asked, his gaze fixed on the swirling auroras below. The planet felt heavy, grieving. Vale of Sighs indeed.

"Affirmative, Commander. Local guerillas engaged in partisan warfare against the Legion occupation. Detecting faint encrypted comms traffic. They're... barely holding on." Lykai's armored hoof tapped the deck. "Kay's signature... overwhelming. Centered near the largest geothermal complex. Legion presence there is... chaotic. Fluctuating wildly."

Estelle nodded, a cold certainty settling in his core. "Prepare for combat drop. Maximum stealth approach."

Vale of Sighs - Geothermal Complex Perimeter

High atop a weeping obsidian spire, wreathed in the planet's shimmering, toxic mist, stood the Omen Knight.

Kay's corrupted armor devoured the weak light, deep violet Imaginary Energy clinging to him like a second skin. The crimson fires within his visor pulsed rhythmically, mirroring the chaotic thrum of destruction emanating from the Legion-held complex below.

He watched impassively as the first streaks of Legion dropships screamed into the upper atmosphere, engines painting brief, violent contrails against the twilight sky. Reinforcements. Expected. Ants swarming a disturbed nest. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his Void Greatsword, the living metal groaning softly.

Come. All of you. Fuel for the forge. Clear the path for the newborn dawn.* The fractured prophecy – Beauty's light strangled by Destruction – burned like acid in his corrupted mind.

His sensors pinged – not Legion signatures, but familiar, sharp purity cutting through the miasma. Two sleek vessels, resonating faintly with Beauty's power, pierced the cloud layer, descending towards a clearing far from the fissures. One radiated disciplined, focused light – Lykai.

The other... Estelle. A sharp, unexpected pang lanced through the numb fury encasing his consciousness. Estelle. His brother. His Commander. Come to stop him. Come to uphold the decaying old gods.

The air in the clearing was thick, cloying, tasting of ozone and decaying fungus. Estelle and Lykai emerged from their landed shuttle, weapons drawn. Estelle held not his familiar shield, but a newly drawn blade. A masterpiece of Knightly forgecraft, longer and slimmer than a standard longsword, its blade forged from captured starlight and tempered in a nebula's heart – the Stellar Oath.

Lykai nocked an arrow, his compound bow creaking with tension, his silver mane bristling. "He's here," he hissed, gaze locked on the obsidian spire.

Kay descended not with grace, but with a brutal, earth-shattering impact. He landed twenty paces away, armored boots cracking the ground, sending shards of glowing crystal skittering. Oppressive Imaginary Decay rolled off him in visible, dark purple waves, warping the light. His crimson visor fixed first on Lykai, then deliberately on Estelle.

"Brother," Kay's voice emerged distorted, layered with static and a guttural resonance utterly alien. "You received the invitation."

"Invitation?!" Lykai roared, bowstring taut, arrowhead blazing with silver fury. "Look at this place, Kay! Look at Rotstar-7! This is madness! *Betrayal*! Have you forgotten the vows? Forgotten Idrilla?!" Spittle flew. "You defile sacred rites! You preach *new gods* while desecrating everything the Knights stood for! You are no Knight! You are the Omen of our ruin!"

Kay's helmet tilted. Crimson fires flared. "Idrilla?" The name was spat like filth. "*Idrilla turned her back! Abandoned us! Left us clutching fading embers while the galaxy burns!"

His voice rose, laced with hysteria and corrupted grief.

"The old Paths are shattered, Lykai! The old gods *have fallen*! The Knights... scattered... clinging to ghosts!" He slammed a fist against his corrupted chest plate. "Rotstar-7? Obstacles to the new god! Filth to be cleansed! Just like here!"

He gestured wildly towards the distant fissures, where sounds of renewed battle echoed – local resistance likely exploiting his chaos. "Idrilla failed! Offers no sanctuary, no future! We need power! Power to seize the dawn! Power we control! Power to forge* a god who won't abandon us! A god of our making, Lykai! A god to end the Destruction that took her!" His voice cracked, raw and desperate. "Serene... he must be protected. Even if I drown a thousand worlds in void to forge it!"

Serene. A name Estelle had never heard.

Estelle listened, the Stellar Oath steady, its light a cool counterpoint to Kay's blazing insanity.

The grief was real, twisted monstrously by despair and void corruption. He saw the shattered idealist beneath the monstrous armor. "Kay," Estelle's voice cut through, calm yet heavy with sorrow.

"This path leads only to deeper darkness. You become the very thing you swore to destroy."

"You don't understand!" Kay shrieked, void energy surging violently. "None of you understand the cost! I see it! The shadow falling! I feel it!" He clutched his helmeted head.

As Kay raved, Estelle's sharp eyes scanned beyond the standoff. Movement near broken crystal clusters. Not Legion. Humanoid figures in makeshift camo gear. Resistance fighters, observing cautiously. Then, Estelle saw it – partially obscured by a large glowing fungus.

A body. Not crystallized by void energy, but clearly killed by ballistic trauma and crude energy burns. Wearing tattered resistance insignia. Nearby, another. And another. This path was littered not just with Legion dead. Innocents. Locals caught in Kay's "necessary" purge.

Ice colder than the void itself flooded Estelle's veins. The last vestiges of hesitation, the hope for redemption, shattered. This wasn't just war. This was slaughter.

The utter abandonment of all the Knights of Beauty embodied. Protecting all life was the core tenet. Kay had crossed an unforgivable line.

"Kay." Estelle's voice changed. Sorrow remained, but beneath surged a cold, hard fury, resonating through the Stellar Oath. The blade's light intensified, casting sharp, pure shadows.

"You speak of protecting Serene? Look at what your 'protection' has wrought!"

He gestured sharply towards the hidden resistance corpses.

"You have murdered those you swore to defend! No justification! No higher purpose excuses this!"

Battle exploded.

Lykai's arrow screamed towards Kay's head, a lance of pure silver light. Kay didn't flinch. His corrupted Void Greatsword moved with terrifying, brutal speed – not to parry, but to shatter.

The dark blade met the arrow mid-flight. Annihilation. The arrow detonated in a silent burst of void energy that swallowed the light, leaving only scorched air and a concussive wave that staggered Lykai.

Kay charged. Not a knight's advance, but a beast-rush of corrupted fury. The ground cracked. He ignored Lykai momentarily, crimson gaze locked on Estelle. The Void Greatsword came down in a devastating overhead cleave, trailing dark purple energy that screeched as it tore the air.

Estelle met it with the Stellar Oath. He didn't meet brute force head-on. He flowed. The luminous blade met the void weapon at an angle, guided by precise footwork and inherent grace.

Light met darkness in a shower of sparks and shrieking energy. Estelle diverted the immense force, letting it slam into the ground beside him, cratering the crystalline earth. He riposted instantly, the Stellar Oath a silver blur, its tip aiming not to kill, but to disable – a precise thrust towards a corrupted joint at Kay's shoulder.

Kay roared, fury outweighing pain. His free hand, clad in spiked gauntlets, swept out in a backhand blow that could crush stone. Estelle ducked under it, the wind ruffling his hair, his own blade lashing out in a quick, shallow cut across Kay's thigh plate, luminous runes flaring as they scored the dark metal.

Meanwhile, Lykai recovered. He moved with centaur agility, circling, firing arrows rapidly – not for kills, but to harass, disrupt. Streaks of silver shot towards Kay's blind spots, forcing him to split attention. One arrow struck Kay's corrupted pauldron, exploding in silver light that momentarily staggered the Omen Knight, leaving a smoking dent.

Kay snarled, sending a sweeping wave of void energy towards Lykai. The centaur leaped aside, the dark energy scything through his former position, crystallizing and shattering a large fungal growth.

The contrast was stark. Kay fought with savage, overwhelming power, every blow designed to obliterate, fueled by rage and corrupted energy.

His movements were powerful but sometimes telegraphed, relying on sheer force and void's terror. Lykai was speed and precision incarnate, a blur of silver and lethal light, arrows seeking weaknesses, hooves finding perfect footing. Estelle was the eye of the storm. His swordsmanship with the Stellar Oath was a breathtaking dance of light – parries flowing like water, ripostes striking like lightning, footwork defying gravity.

He wielded immense power, focused, controlled, beautiful even in lethality. Yet, within the dance, there was restraint. He struck to disable, to wound, clinging to the faint hope of subduing, not killing. He saw killing openings but held back, the memory of the brother warring with the monster.

Kay sensed the hesitation. "Holding back, Estelle?" he taunted, voice distorted, blocking Lykai's arrows with a sweep of his greatsword.

Kay then unleashed a brutal, two-handed horizontal sweep aimed at Estelle's torso, void energy screeching like damned souls.

Estelle met it squarely this time. The Stellar Oath blazed as he channeled pure Beauty's power into the blade. Light and void collided cataclysmically. Silver and dark purple energy erupted outward, hurling Lykai back and cracking the obsidian ground for meters around.

Estelle skidded back, boots carving furrows in the crystal, arms trembling. Kay barely budged, crimson fires blazing triumphantly.

Lykai scrambled up, a gash bleeding on his equine flank from flying shrapnel. Seeing Estelle's disadvantage, he charged Kay's flank with a wordless roar of fury, lowering his head, armored forequarters aimed like a battering ram, his bow held like a lance.

Kay, focused on Estelle, reacted a fraction slow. Lykai's armored shoulder slammed into his ribs with bone-jarring force. Kay grunted, stumbling sideways. Lykai pressed, raining powerful, armored hoof strikes against Kay's legs.

"Traitor!" Lykai spat again, the word thick with blood and rage.

The distraction gave Estelle the crucial moment. He saw not an enemy, but a corrupted brother, off-balance, vulnerable. The Stellar Oath blazed with new intensity. He could end it. A single, focused thrust, channeling the sword's power, could pierce the corrupted armor, reach the heart of the madness.

He raised the blade, light gathering at its tip, a miniature star forming. The moment stretched into eternity, filled with echoes of shared battles, shared vows, shared grief. The innocent dead of the Vale. The corrupted promise on the console. The desperate, twisted love for a future god.

Would he strike? Could he? The pure light of the Stellar Oath pulsed in his grip, awaiting its master's command. A brother's fate. Estelle's own fate. Perhaps the fate of Beauty itself, hung suspended in the toxic air of the Vale of Sighs.