Honkai: Star Rail: Wan Di's Mobile Castrum Kremnos

What is a homebody's greatest joy? Having your home come along for the ride.

I want to wander through the years, or become a beam of light in the sky.

Here's an opening that should probably be scrapped. I'll see how the story develops after 3.3:

Here, the only light in the Black Tide was Castrum Kremnos.

After the last crown prince, Mydeimos, ascended to godhood and raised his sword against the Black Tide,

this invincible fortress, which had once followed in Nikadori's footsteps and waged war countless times against the various states of Amphoreus,

became the most impregnable barrier,

holding back the surging, unending "tide" before the endless darkness.

The fighting never stopped. The city was swallowed by the Black Tide again and again, yet each time it fought its way back out. Just like the last crown prince beside it, the undying demigod who had never lost a battle.

Now, within the city, more than half of which had crumbled into ruins, the clash of metal finally fell silent. The battle that had raged for days and nights at last reached its end, unseen by anyone.

The shock waves of the clash rolled past. When they faded, great swaths of gold and jagged blood crystals were revealed.

The two figures at the center overlapped like lovers, but only because one was driving a deadly blade deeper into the other's body.

[One day, you will die with a wound in your back.]

The fate he had known ever since taking up the Flame was fulfilled at last.

"Cough!"

Mydeimos choked out a mouthful of blood. He paid no heed to the blade piercing his chest and abdomen, or to his immortality being broken.

Even as the fatal wound was wrenched wider, he turned to look at the Flame Reaver who had delivered the final blow.

The evil aura tainted by the Black Tide was unmistakable. As silent and still as at their first meeting, the mysterious being remained shrouded in black robes.

But now Mydeimos's gaze seemed to see through it all, his expression dazed.

The sword through his vitals, the familiar feeling he had sensed all along, and so much more all came together, forming a suspicion he had long held...

It was you.

Was my end truly necessary...?

His fiery golden eyes were already dimming. His immortal body could no longer hold together. His divine power drifted away, along with the Flame of Strife, about to escape...

But before the end arrived, the last lone king swung his clenched fist, not at the one who had won at last.

Crimson blood crystals burst outward layer by layer, spreading across the dark city and everything in sight. They seemed to have no end, turning everything into a dead wasteland. Even the calamity of the Black Tide stopped in its tracks...

The blade piercing his vitals remained lodged in his chest and abdomen, but he paid it no mind.

At this final moment, he looked once more at the person who was both familiar and strange, and said:

"...Don't hesitate. Don't doubt..."

The brilliant golden blood of the Chrysos Heirs ran down the armored hand resting against the Flame Reaver's cheek, laying a brilliant glow over the dimness before passing into oblivion.

Everything fell quiet. Only the hollow howling of the wind came from every direction.

He had died, yet remained standing where he was.

The one who had set all this in motion stood rigid, or perhaps had been rigid from the beginning.

The other person merely gritted their teeth, pulled out the sword, and turned away.

"...Wait a little longer... Everyone, soon, very soon, we'll meet again. I promise... in the new world..."

The walls crumbled. The city collapsed. Castrum Kremnos lost its color.

The black tide surged over the last dam, about to sweep toward the final refuge of the living...

But before that could happen, the suspended blade began its final swing.

A thunderous crash shook heaven and earth. In that instant, the blade's brilliance swept across the horizon, as if dawn had risen there.

Mydeimos roared in fury until the very end.

What is death?

An ending, a cycle, a homecoming. The myriad beings of the universe each have their own answer.

But in Amphoreus, ever since the three Titans of calamity descended,

people have believed that all death and all endings converge on that distant shore: the eternal sea of flowers, at the far end of the west wind, where milk and honey flow.

But for those who refuse to die and cross the River of the Dead, the true land of death lies elsewhere.

It is the terrifying sight an undying person glimpses at the boundary of life, the first time they search for an end.

Not a tranquil sea of flowers, nor a flawed, illusory moon, but...

a deeper, darker place,

the very existence that generations of Thanatos have exhausted their strength trying to quiet:

the source of everything, the Black Tide's original birthplace.

In a silence unlike anything before, Mydeimos opened his eyes in the tide. Crowds jostled and wailed in grief, washing away the last of his thoughts and reason until they wavered, then quietly vanished in the gentle ebb and flow.

This was the greatest force of destruction. The destruction of physical form must eventually end, but only the annihilation of everything can truly end all things.

And when dissolution reached its peak, even extinction fell silent.

Whatever fury, longing, or wish one held would dissolve in this immense power, because this was the source of everything.

On this planet, everything came from here, from that great living being.

We are islands in an endless tide, and those islands came from Them as well. Re-Creation raised the crust of the world, but the ocean continued to rise until it reached the breaking point.

So sleep. Not for any reason, but only to return to the original stillness and be with Them.

Mydeimos rose to his feet.

The tide washed over him, sweeping in to reclaim his thoughts, his mind, his soul, everything.

The golden figure took a step, intending to leave this origin point, where distance and time had both perished.

How had he left this place that first time?

He could barely remember.

A wave washed over him. The flames and the call came together.

Who was it?

Those cold hands reached out of the void, dragging him, pulling him along. Together, they stumbled forward against the ceaseless Black Tide, returning once more to the world of the living, where someone was still waiting for him.

The phantom pain of his chest and abdomen being pierced still seemed to pulse, but it stirred a glimmer of awareness.

It was you.

To have made your way out of this desolation, your journey... truly...

There was no resistance, no heroism, no fearlessness. You were simply able to endure more suffering than anyone else.

The undying crown prince knew that better than anyone.

It was you.

I, too, walk the path you have traveled. No matter how hard or humiliating it is, I must return to the world of the living.

Then he would not lose, either.

He only had to walk the road he had taken once more.

And at least on this unfinished journey, there would be some comfort in supporting each other.

He rose to his feet in the Black Tide.

He was going to see that person...

Content warnings:

1. The CP is Mydei and Castorice, but Castorice will probably have little screen time at first.

2. The author is just building the history.

3. HoYoverse, please be kind to my CP, aaah!

Theme: Eternal love guides us both upward