Transcription
Welcome back, Trailblazers. This is episode three of our Honkai Star Rail Amphoreus journey. This time, the story focuses on Castorice and Anaxa and also gives us a little insight as to why Amphoreus is such a weird little planet. And if you found these multitudes of explanations and theorems a little bit confusing, don't worry. I'm gonna lay it all out in a more digestible manner as we go through the events of the quest. So, without further ado, let's start this recap off with a quick reminder of what happened in the last episode. So, here goes.
After recovering the Coreflame of Strife, Phainon attempted and failed to pass Nikador's trial. Mydei was tasked with recovering Phainon's spirit from the trial but refused to take the trial himself, accusing Aglaea as having manipulated the events in such a way as to coerce him into accepting the Trial of Strife when he didn't want it. But, in light of recent events, Mydei has resigned himself to his fate as Strife's successor, but he still had several concerns about the fate of the Kremnoan people, so he sought advice from his teacher, Krateros, who was none too pleased with what he heard. So, obviously, the next logical thing he would do is kidnap Trinnon and attempt and fail the Trial of Strife himself. And, after Mydei and Krateros reconcile their differences (if you can even call it that), Mydei finally attempted the Trial of Strife himself.
Meanwhile, the Trailblazer, Castorice, and Trianne went to the Grove to deliver a letter to Anaxa on behalf of Aglaea. But when they arrived, everyone had already been swallowed by the Black Tide. Under the alias of Calypso, the current Reason Titan, Cerces then reached out to them and asked that they recover the fragments of her Coreflame that she hid across the Grove. Later on, she confesses that the final fragment was actually being used to keep Anaxa alive, as he had nearly died fighting off the Black Tide so the other scholars could evacuate. They found him unconscious on the Luminary Throne with the Flame Reaver, who quickly attacked them, only to get impaled by Anaxa's surprise attack. Knowing they couldn't win against the Reaver in a fair fight, Trianne opened the Century Gate and warped him halfway across Amphoreus, which bought them enough time to retreat to Okhema. After that unsettling event, Tribbie, Trinnon, and Trianne decided to go see Oronyx in the hopes of repairing their own Coreflame. But the Reaver appeared once again, forcing Trianne to sacrifice herself so the others could escape safely. That meant that the Coreflame of Passages was still safe, but the Coreflame of Time had been stolen by the Reaver.
In light of recent events, the Chrysos Heirs concluded that the Reaver was hunting Coreflames and must be stopped. So, they used Anaxa, who had the Coreflame inside of him, as bait to lure the Reaver to Castrum Kremnos. Then they had Mem open a gate so they could seal the Reaver in the past. A fully ascended Mydei arrived just in time for the Reaver's escape, and the power of Strife's successor was able to force the Reaver into retreat, leaving Oronyx's Coreflame behind. Afterwards, Mydei decided to stay in Castrum Kremnos and fight off the Black Tide by himself until the prophecy was complete. And even though their Coreflame was still a little bit broken, Trinnon took the Trailblazer and Phainon to Janusopolis to witness Tribbie's ascension into demigodhood and the moment they received the prophecy of Genesis, as they promised to do after the incident with Krateros. This was the moment that we learned for certain that Kephale was the one to issue the prophecy in the first place and not Oronyx, as you would expect. And that's where we left off last time.
So, our story resumes back to the bathhouse because the bathhouse isn't really a bathhouse; it's actually a command center, and we really need to figure out what we're doing next, because the Coreflame of Time is starting to burn out. And we don't actually have a Chrysos Heir that's compatible with it. In fact, it's been over a millennia since anyone has had any sort of real compatibility with the Coreflame of Time. But while there is no Chrysos Heir that's compatible with Time, we do have a Trailblazer who is compatible with Time. So, the Trailblazer is like, "Eh, why not? Throw caution to the wind. Why don't I try and take on the Trial of Time and become a demigod of this planet that I've never been to before? That sounds fun." So, they step up and take on Oronyx's Trial of Time.
Now, the Trial of Time isn't nearly as chaotic and messy as the Trial of Strife, thankfully. But even the mere act of attempting the Trial allows Mem to start speaking in full sentences, which, again, does make sense, because Oronyx was the one who made it possible for Mem to manifest in the first place. It's only natural that their power could strengthen that manifestation. That said, Oronyx is still quite weak, with most of their soul having dissipated already. But that doesn't stop them from saying the most curious things, like recognizing the Trailblazer as having caught the gaze of Fuli the Sky Father, or claiming that mother is calling for them. Or at least she was; she's apparently no longer calling or responding, and we don't know what that means yet. And it is absolutely wild that Oronyx is one of only two individuals on Amphoreus that even knows about Aeons and Pathstriders in the first place. But I suppose that is fitting if their demigod is an outlander, you know. These ramblings aren't really part of the Trial, though, so we can likely ignore them for now.
But we can't ignore that fact that while Oronyx recognizes the Trailblazer's potential to bear their Coreflame, they lack one critical thing: a future. The implication here being that the Trailblazer is kind of dead. 'Cause, apparently, when the Astral Express car-landed on Amphoreus, the Trailblazer died on impact. So, as it stands currently, they're something like a ghost made up of memories that Fuli's gaze managed to stabilize somewhat temporarily. Worth noting that the stabilization stuff does seem to have something to do with Mem as well, and surprisingly nothing to do with the Stellaron inside of them. I don't know what happened to it. It's been weirdly quiet this whole time; maybe because they're dead. I don't know. They never say. But ghosts don't stick around forever, so time is running out, not just for the Trailblazer but for Amphoreus, because if someone doesn't inherit Time's Coreflame, the laws of time itself will collapse, which would be devastating, to say the least.
But Oronyx doesn't have time to wait for another candidate to come around. Their soul is continuing to deteriorate, so despite this fatal flaw of the Trailblazer's, they have no choice but to relinquish their authority of time to the Trailblazer and hope that they are able to recover their lost future before their ghost body destabilizes and dissipates in, uh, 15 days. So, if you want to undo this whole dying thing, we need to go and find the Titan of Death, Thanatos, and with Castorice's help, this might just be possible. But finding Death is actually pretty tricky because Death has been missing for basically the entire history of Amphoreus. So, our primary focus for the next 2 weeks is going to be trying to figure out where Death could possibly be.
Unfortunately, though, a dying demigod isn't the only problem we have to deal with. The Council of Elders, Okhema's governing body, has been vying for power to govern Okhema in place of the Chrysos Heirs. And they also want to stop the Flame-Chase Journey entirely. This issue, among many others, will be decided by vote at an upcoming citizens' assembly. They've lost the previous assemblies, but this time, they've enlisted Anaxa's support. Now, despite being a Chrysos Heir, this alliance isn't that suspicious, since Anaxa has a history of voting against the continuation of the Flame-Chase Journey. But things are a little bit different this time around. Anaxa is also technically dead, and the Coreflame inside of him can only sustain his body for about, oh, I don't know, 15 more days, which doesn't really bother him that much; it just means that he only has 15 days left to prove out his ultimate hypothesis about the Titans, the Flame-Chase Journey, and the true nature of the human soul. And to Anaxa, the citizens' assembly is the perfect stage for delivering his final thesis. So, this alliance is somewhat necessary and very expected. But in order to understand why it's necessary and why he even wants to deliver this thesis to the public assembly anyway, we really need to understand the source and significance of Anaxa's research, otherwise his plan to leverage the citizens' assembly doesn't make much sense.
So, here's the deal. When Anaxa was a child, the Black Tide destroyed his home and dissolved his family, leaving him behind as the sole survivor. He prayed and pleaded to every Titan he could think of for help, and when he received no response, he concluded that the Titans were not omnipotent gods and therefore deserved none of his reverence. To Anaxa, the Titans were merely just very powerful humans, so he could hardly look at them as deities.
When Anaxa got older, he went to study at the Grove of Epiphany, where he learned about Thalesus, the First Scholar, best known for developing the concept of the soul. Thalesus claimed that this hypothetical soul was the true essence of life itself, as well as a source material from which everything came into existence. His thesis on the soul became the foundation for all seven schools of thought in the Grove, although each branch interpreted and applied his work in very different ways.
Now, Thalesus is actually based on Thales of Miletus, one of the seven sages and founding figures of ancient Greece. Now, I'm sure you've very quickly picked up on the parallels between the seven sages that founded ancient Greece and the seven sages that ran the seven schools of thought in the Grove of Epiphany. It's a pretty direct reference. But of those seven sages that founded ancient Greece, Thales was the only real philosopher and natural scientist among them. Unlike the others, he truly wanted to understand the natural world and how it worked without explaining natural forces through the means of anthropomorphization and gods, and myths, and that kind of stuff. Instead, he wanted to explain things using logic and reasoning. And now you can see why Thalesus, who's based on Thales, is Anaxa's idol.
Now, Thales ultimately concluded that all of nature must be composed of a singular source material. Some kind of ultimate cosmic substance, if you will. And to Thales, this substance was water, so to him, water was the source of everything. So, if water is the source of everything and the soul is also in everything that moves, then you could argue that the soul is water. And that's how we get to Amphoreus with Thalesus claiming that the soul is the source of all things. Now, based on the dialogue that we have with Black Swan at the end of the quest (which we're gonna go over later), Amphoreus is a world that's constructed entirely out of memories, or, more specifically, it should be a world made entirely out of memoria, which, coincidentally, behaves just like water. Therefore, in Amphoreus, the soul is memoria.
So, once Anaxa figured out how this theory really worked, he began to wonder if it was possible to take existing things, revert them back into source material, and then reshape them into something new. It would be a bit like taking a terracotta pot, turning it back into clay, and then reshaping it into something new. And this process of transmuting source material from one shape to another is what he calls alchemy. Now, given that the source material appears to be memoria, this process should be similar to both dream-weaving and March's unique process of making six-phased ice. So, at that point of his studies, Anaxa had essentially realized that everything is made out of a single substance that he could manipulate through alchemical transmutation. And if he managed to master this power, he would effectively be a god in his own right. And if Anaxa could just make people into gods by teaching them alchemy, then there would be no reason to pursue the Flame-Chase Journey or even to revere the Titans. But this is all contingent on him proving his theories.
So, his first attempt at transmutation was an effort to resurrect his dead sister, and he used his own eye as source material for her. Now, this is where he learns that true alchemy actually requires an equivalent exchange. A single eye is not enough to transmute his sister completely because, well, an eye isn't exactly equal in value to an entire person, so he only really manages to maintain her form for a single day. So, it wasn't a total success, but his theory did have merit. And so he went on to found the Nousporists school of thought, intending to study the soul and the source material of the world, and also the means of manipulating it through alchemy. Now, naturally, this also meant investigating the truth behind how the world of Amphoreus works, and that also meant investigating the Chrysos Heirs and the Titans. Anaxa reasoned that those with golden blood all have direct lineages to the Titans. And despite the claims that Titans created the Chrysos Heir and everything else, for that matter, he notes that the Chrysos Heirs specifically are much closer in composition to the Titans themselves than they are the creations of the Titans. This leads him to the conclusion that the Chrysos Heirs and the Titans must be the same type of entity. And to prove out this hypothesis, he intends to melt down a Titan into its raw source material so that he can study it.
Now, I say "intends," but, technically speaking, he's already tried this once with Cerces. See, when the Black Tide invaded the Grove, the reason he went to the Luminary Throne specifically was so that he could try and fuse his soul with Cerces. It didn't work as intended, probably because she had already split her own Coreflame into multiple pieces, but it did allow him to repair his own fractured soul enough for Cerces to finish the job with the rest of the Coreflame fragments. And that effectively brought him back to life for about another 15 days.
Now, this is all information that Hyacine and Dan Heng dig up during their hunt for information on Thanatos in the Grove. And all of this got relayed to Aglaea, so she knows what's up. And that's probably why she's not too worried about Anaxa siding with the Council of Elders during the citizens' assembly. But more on that in a bit.
This fusion experiment of Anaxa's, albeit a bit flawed, fueled his hypothesis about the true nature of the Chrysos Heirs and the Titans. He's now fully convinced that Titans and Chrysos Heirs are the exact same thing. Or, more specifically, Titans are merely evolved forms of Chrysos Heirs. If Chrysos Heirs are caterpillars, then Titans are their butterflies, which does suggest that at one point, every Titan was indeed a human, and the Flame-Chase Journey itself is merely a selection or filtration process, through which the next Titans are chosen. The only thing Anaxa needs now is confirmation. And also a small investigation into how a soul is born and what exactly it means to die. His current hypothesis is that all souls are recycled or reincarnated because that makes sense for the whole alchemical equivalent exchange thing: if you need to make a person, you're gonna need a person's worth of stuff, and that material doesn't come from nowhere, so if someone dies, then you would have enough material to make a new person. And this whole equivalent exchange thing is also the reason why he believes that Amphoreus' history is cyclical and that there were many instances in the past where the world was entirely recreated through the Miracle of Genesis. But you can't create something from nothing. That would violate the law of equivalent exchange. So, before we can even think of going through with Genesis, the old world must be melted down into raw material so that those materials can be reused to build the new world. And following this logic, it is actually possible that the Black Tide is part of this melting process.
Now, to get confirmation for his theory, Anaxa needs access to Kephale, because they are the Worldbearing Titan; their responsibility is to quite literally recreate the world at the Moment of Genesis, and that includes making all of the other Titans. So, looking back on what we learned so far about the nature of the soul and alchemy and all of that: if the soul is the source of everything and the source of everything is water (or memoria), then Kephale's soul should contain memories of the previous cycle that were used to create the current Amphoreus, because that's what Kephale does. Kephale is supposed to recreate the world from their own memories. In fact, this whole world recreation role from your own memories is probably the reason why Phainon has a self-described perfect memory. 'Cause, you know, he's the inheritor of Kephale's divinity. And just as a fun little tidbit: the previous Kephale's name was Khaos, which is really just another spelling of "chaos," and in early Greek cosmology, Khaos was the cosmic source material that was molded into the universe. Khaos is also known as the abyss, or the void, or the infinite darkness, which are all things that I associate with the Black Tide. Assuming Anaxa is right about the world needing to melt down in order to be reborn, the Black Tide should logically be a power of Kephale's, right? That could explain why Phainon is the heir to Kephale but is also the Flame Reaver who was born of the Black Tide. It's a little hard to argue against it at this point.
Now, here's the thing: in order to get access to Kephale's divine body, Anaxa needs to cozy up to the Council of Elders because they control the temple area around Kephale. And this is why I said you need to understand Anaxa's theory before the whole siding with the Council of Elders plan starts to make sense. He's just using the council to get to Kephale to prove his theory of the soul and the true nature of the Titans, while using the citizens' assembly as a stage to share his conclusions before he dies. Otherwise, there's no reason why he would agree to a plan as stupid as the Council's. Because the Council's plan is to put a stop to the Flame-Chase Journey because they want to return to Era Chrysea—the golden age of prosperity and abundance that existed before the three Calamity Titans descended. And no, they can't turn back time or anything, but they can use Kephale's Coreflame and Phagousa's water curtain to isolate Okhema from the rest of the world. And if they destroy Thanatos and deprive them of an Heir, then the world would no longer know death either. So, by Council logic, that should make Okhema some sort of eternal paradise. It's a terribly stupid idea, and we're gonna see it ripped apart later, but for now, Anaxa manages to feign an alliance with the Council and promises to vote against the continuing of the Flame-Chase Journey. He's got a history of voting against the Flame-Chase Journey, plus he has a well-known feud with Aglaea, which makes his allegiance fairly believable. Plus, he promises that Castorice, the Heir to Thanatos, will side with him, or rather the Council. This pleases the Council, so they allow him to approach Kephale, and as he does so, he starts to see crystallized memory fragments of the Chrysos Heirs of the previous cycle. Among them is Calypso, who became Cerces—although Cerces has no recollection of this. But this just further fuels Anaxa's theory about the Titans being nothing more than evolved forms of humans, and when Castorice finally arrives, he shares his theory with her by using the transmutative power of alchemy to mesh his soul with Kephale's, which allows him to access Kephale's memories of the previous cycle. He then crystallizes those memory fragments so Cerces and Castorice can witness them firsthand.
And in witnessing Gnaeus' ascension into godhood and becoming Nikador, we can kind of see how the events of the past have been twisted between the cycles. In the original cycle, Calypso used soul alchemy to help Gnaeus split his own soul into multiple parts so his demigod form would not become lost to the madness of Strife. But in the current cycle, this splitting of Strife's soul was attributed to King Eurypon instead. So we now know that events do carry over between cycles to some extent. Which would make sense because the world has to be recreated from Kephale's memories. So Kephale has to come up with an explanation for why certain things are the way they are, and I'm sure there's going to be some errors in that process. But it's only when Kephale's memory reveals that Castorice is Polyxia's twin sister from the previous cycle that Anaxa truly knows his "cycle of histories" theory is correct. And now all that's left is to locate Thanatos so he can uncover the details of how this carryover between cycles actually works. Like, if the twins can meet each other at the river of souls, then Anaxa can prove the cycles are directly connected to each other, with the afterlife being the point where the cycles overlap.
Luckily, finding Thanatos is already on our schedule 'cause the Trailblazer is currently dying, and only Thanatos can grant them life again. But if we want to figure out the last location of Thanatos, then we need only figure out what happened to the two heirs of Thanatos: Castorice and Polyxia. Kephale's memory reveals that in order for the twins to pass Death's Trial and become Thanatos, one of the twins had to sacrifice themselves to death for the other to ascend. Castorice decided to become Death’s sacrifice, but Polyxia was unable to bear the thought of losing her sister and fully intended on using the alchemy that Calypso taught her to resurrect her sister in the new world, specifically in Styxia, which was their hometown. And that means that the last known location of Death was Styxia. Anaxa then gives Castorice a Philosopher's Stone that was transmuted from his own heart—hence the hole in his chest—and tasks Castorice and the Trailblazer with reaching Styxia and the realm of the dead. But they don't know how to do that, so they ask Aglaea for help. And Aglaea hires the demigod of Trickery, Cipher, to assist them. Cipher sends them both on a little hunt for stolen treasure before she shows up for real, then uses her super-speed ability to effectively warp them all the way to Styxia before bouncing. Now, if you're wondering why Cipher is performing the escort services instead of Tribbie, it's because the power of Passages is running dangerously low, and Aglaea is trying to conserve it.
Once inside the city, Castorice realizes that it's full of the souls of the dead who shouldn't actually be here. They're supposed to float down the river of souls (perhaps the River Styx), but instead appear to be stuck on the shores. Cipher reappears briefly to explain that the souls have been denied access to the Nether Realm. It's like someone intentionally dammed up the river or something. Now, many of the souls around here are from the Era Chrysea, which, as I mentioned before, was the era before the Calamity Titans descended. That means that they are from the era before the concept of death existed. And as we continue to venture through Styxia, we slowly uncover the truth of what happened to the city, the river of souls, and Thanatos.
In Era Chrysea, Styxia was a city that worshipped Phagousa and was known for lavish feasts and drunken escapades. Then one day, the Queen of Styxia heard of this new phenomenon called death that had recently appeared in Styxia. And the more she learned about it, the more she believed it could free everyone from the shackles of fate. Whatever her reasoning, this version of death or Thanatos actually came in two parts. There was a dragon who refused to let humans die, and a young girl who could kill anyone she touched. Well, the Queen wanted death, so the Queen stole the girl and named her Castorice after the Papilio castor butterfly, probably because butterflies represent the soul in Greek mythology. She attempted to raise Castorice as her daughter, but when the river of souls split at Styxia, she gave her to Amunet, where she was raised to be the executioner of Aidonia.
Now, the reason why death became a pair in this cycle was because when Polyxia became the Titan, she wanted nothing more than to resurrect Castorice. So she used alchemy to do that. But once again, alchemy runs on the law of equivalent exchange. So to grant Castorice life, Polyxia had to forfeit her own life. So as soon as Polyxia was born in the new cycle as Thanatos, she died. And her draconic form literally dammed up the river of souls and prevented everyone from reaching their final destination in the Nether Realm. She became nothing more than a divine corpse blocking an intangible river of memories, memories that overflowed in a flood that destroyed Styxia. And this is why no one knew anything about Thanatos. They had never shown themselves in the mortal realm because they traded their life for Castorice's at the very beginning of time. So if we want to reach Thanatos, we need to get to the realm of the dead. But we can't do that if the gate is blocked by its empty corpse. So we actually need to revive Thanatos first. Fortunately, the soul of an alchemist from the Styxia of Era Chrysea has put together an alchemical formula that can do exactly that. But the missing ingredient is a life equal to death, in other words, Castorice's life, and also some memories which are related to the four primary elements of earth, water, wind, and fire. Craft for me what I desire. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. That's the wrong game; hold on. That's Genshin.
One ingredient was obtained from the spirit of Trianne, who was waiting near the gate to the afterlife for Castorice to arrive. Mydei also makes an appearance here. He doesn't really stick around for that long 'cause he needs to hurry up and get back to fighting the Black Tide. But apparently, his whole immortality shtick boils down to him just forcing his way back out of the river of souls. It's sheer willpower. He won't die due to pure stubbornness, and it's beautiful. After gathering all of the ingredients, Castorice returns to the alchemical matrix and uses the memories, herself, and the Philosopher's Stone that Anaxa gave her to resurrect Polyxia, who rejects her birth at first but eventually resigns herself to it. Which is great, because the Trailblazer is still dying, and there's not much time left before they expire.
Castorice manages to convince her sister that death has a purpose and doesn't only bring suffering and grief. Death gives meaning to beautiful things in life, like Mnestia's gift of love. For what reason would people have to treasure their lives if not for the threat of death? Additionally, death makes room for progress. To deprive the world of death, like the Council of Elders wants to, is to return the world to an era of stagnation. Contrary to what the council believes, Era Chrysea was not a great time to be alive, despite its lack of death. People merely existed during that era. They didn't "live," they didn't feel, they lacked purpose and meaning. So in light of this, I think it's actually fascinating that it was Phagousa, who governs over wine and altered states of mind and emotion, that triggered Styxia's desire for death's existence in the first place, or at least that this all went down in Phagousa's domain. So Polyxia and Castorice embrace for a final time, as Castorice allows Polyxia to die properly while she takes her place as the demigod of death. The Trailblazer receives Castorice's blessing and returns to the mortal realm with the Coreflame of Death in hand and with their soul finally intact again, and with a really weird cameo from Acheron. Is this foreshadowing? I don't know.
Now, you might recall that the death of Anaxa, the death of the Trailblazer, and the citizens' assembly were all events that were scheduled to happen on the same day. And since the Trailblazer nearly died today, that means it's also time for the citizens' assembly and also the death of Anaxa, but he's a stubborn son of a gun, and he also has a performance to put on, so that'll probably take a while.
Now, the citizens' assembly is more of a public debate between the Chrysos Heirs and the Council of Elders, with the impartial Lygus as the mediator. Caenis and the Elders kick off this debate by declaring their desire and methods of returning to Era Chrysea. But Phainon argues that the Black Tide poses an enormous threat to Amphoreus, and that even if Kephale's Coreflame could keep the Tide at bay, Mydei saw the Flame Reaver's return, and the Reaver is inevitably coming to steal the Coreflame. Even if they destroy the concept of death itself, they will not be able to stop the Reaver, therefore the Flame-Chase Journey should continue. I like Phainon's argument. It's very logical and it's very solid, but public opinion is split 50/50, so Anaxa's vote will be the tiebreaker. But he waits a little too long to cast his vote because he's actually waiting for Castorice to confirm his theorem. But when she finally does, he casts his vote in favor of the Flame-Chase, which is the opposite of what he'd said he'd do. But it is what he always intended to do, but he can't just roll over and give the Flame Chasers an easy victory.
So when he casts his vote, he asks the crowd if they truly believe in that fairy tale ending of Genesis in a brand new world that the Flame Chase prophecy promises them. He then explains that the current Chrysos Heirs will become the Titans of the next cycle, and that everyone here will be reforged based on Kephale's memories. And this big reveal was his goal all along. He wanted to cast the seeds of doubt and reveal the truth to as many people as possible. Because remember, if the cycles carry over from one to the next, then if he plants seeds of doubt in this cycle, then the next cycle will start with the seeds of doubt already there. This could potentially lead to a whole new outcome in the next cycle. He also confesses to having acquired this knowledge through acts of blasphemy by fusing his soul with Kephale's, with the Council's express permission, and that is an act punishable by death. He hardly cares as his time is just about up anyway, but he does want to take the Council down with him. It's not just satisfying, but it's also one less obstacle for Aglaea and the rest of the Flame Chasers to deal with later.
Because Anaxa still has the Coreflame, Aglaea is tasked with his execution, which takes place at the Vortex of Genesis. And before she goes through with it, she reveals her intention for Phainon to take over her leadership position once her time is finally up, because her soul is in just as bad of shape as Anaxa's is. But while Aglaea clings to life as long as she can, Anaxa seems to be quite content with his inevitable death and rebirth in the new world as the Titan of Reason. But Phainon really doesn't understand why Anaxa readily accepts this future where he's reforged by Kephale, especially seeing as a recreation can never be exactly the same thing as the original. Anaxa counters this argument, claiming that humans are merely the accumulation of memory, and those memories are supposed to expand and grow over time, like seeds turning into trees. This cyclical nature is a feature, not a bug. Once a seed becomes a tree, it will drop more seeds, which will sprout into new trees. Those trees will be different, sure, but they do contain the same core memory. That is to say, an oak tree's seed will always grow into an oak tree, although the shape, size, and health of the trees may differ based on their environments, they will always be the same type of tree at its core. And Anaxa believes that Phainon, with his perfect memory, will be able to perform this act of gardening in the best possible way. So for Anaxa, being reborn merely means obtaining a new body and witnessing a new environment. He will still be himself at his core, but he will have variations based on his new environment. And besides, so long as he's still himself, he knows he'll try and recover his original memories, and he's also confident that he'll succeed.
And with that said, Anaxa turns to face Cerces, who declares that he has passed the Trial of Reason by answering her query of "What are we?" but she also has a new query for him that I found rather interesting. She asks, "If the world lives on through the memories of others, from whose memories did the original world come from?" The answer is probably the 13th Titan, or Cyrene, or some sort of mother goddess sort of thing, as we talked about in the first episode of this recap series, but that treads a little too far into theory territory for me right now, so I agree with Anaxa that this is an investigation for another time. And then he rips the Coreflame from his chest and vanishes in a burst of golden dust.
Back on the Astral Express, we still have an unconscious March and a worried Himeko, who's trying to squeeze some answers out of Black Swan. Black Swan suspects that March's memories may have been hijacked by a rather powerful group that's affiliated with the Garden of Recollection, and if she's right, then this is very, very bad. She explains that the Garden of Recollection believes that everything in the universe is interpreted through memories. Memories make up the past in the form of memoria, and the future is merely a set of possibilities that has yet to become memoria, which means the present isn't exactly real. It's that moment when future possibilities are transmuted into the memoria that makes up the past. This, too, is alchemy. So, if March's memories really were hijacked, then she could lose her ability to remember anything at all, which would basically mean that her future possibilities cannot be converted into her past, and she will likely cease to exist in the present. Or, she may encase herself in an icy layer that never melts, since the manifestation of ice here is also a symptom of memory failure. And if the process of alchemy is really just the process of using memoria as source material to make other things, then alchemy is basically just like dream-weaving. And if you recall from that one quest in Penacony, the process through which March makes six-phased ice is apparently very similar to the process of dream-weaving, which means this ice is alchemical.
Himeko sets these possibilities aside for a moment to ask Black Swan about what her true intentions were when she boarded the Express. Perhaps she suspects her involvement with March's memory issues. Black Swan then explains that she's actually here because Amphoreus is something of a perfect specimen to those from the Garden of Recollection. It's a world made entirely of memories, only able to be seen through the Garden's mirror. And that makes it the most perfect specimen for any Memokeeper's collection. The big problem here is that should anyone figure out a way to force worlds into this state, they may actually just do that at will in order to expand their own personal memory collections. Black Swan even claims that this is the goal of an entire faction that's associated with Fuli, and they are capable of hijacking someone's memories by force, which is why she suggested that March's memories could have been hijacked. Fuli's gaze swept across Amphoreus during her explanation, which means that this conversation actually happened during that moment when Mem first manifested in front of Oronyx, since that's when the Trailblazer caught Fuli's gaze. And now I'm wondering if time works the same way inside Amphoreus as it does outside Amphoreus, and I'm kind of thinking it probably doesn't.
Somewhere else in the galaxy, far, far away, Herta is conducting an investigation of her own. That Memosnatcher she caught had knowledge of Amphoreus, the details of which confirm most of Black Swan's story too. But Herta's had enough of these tedious probing sessions, and she actually wants to visit the place for herself, so she prepares her mirrors to project her quote, "data spirit entity," into Amphoreus. This kind of feels like a form of astral projection, but sci-fi witch coded.
Herta arrives at the Vortex of Genesis without a hitch, and I gotta say, I did not expect the Vortex to be considered the entrance to the planet. If it really is the entrance, then what is up with Amphoreus' sky? Do you have to pass through the Vortex to get to the sky? 'Cause, like, going through the sky is how Trailblazer and Dan Heng ended up in Amphoreus the first time. And as far as we know, they didn't pass through the Vortex of Genesis. Hopefully, they'll explain this at some point, but anyway... Herta quickly stumbles upon the Memoria traces of the Flame Reaver, who's presence here is a little unnerving, given that it's the entrance to Amphoreus, as well as the Trailblazer and Dan Heng. But before she gets much further, she's stopped by Lygus.
It's interesting to me that Herta compares Lygus to Screwllum, because that implies that Lygus is at least somewhat mechanical in nature, which would make sense, given how his race is named after the Antikytherian mechanism, which is one of the oldest analog computers ever discovered. And it's especially interesting because he claims to have witnessed the gaze of Nous, implying a connection to the Erudition. But he also claims to be a Watcher, someone who is merely monitoring Amphoreus, turning away those who seek to interfere with it, except they didn't interfere with Dan Heng and the Trailblazer. And I wonder if that's because they completely bypassed the Vortex when they entered Amphoreus. And I still don't know how they do that, and that's really gonna bother me. So, Lygus could be a potential Emanator of Erudition, but I'm gonna leave some links to some alternate theories about what he could be, because while Erudition makes sense, I do think there's an argument to be made for Order and Equilibrium. But, regardless, it's definitely clear that no matter what Path he actually follows, Lygus is an outsider to Amphoreus, or, at least, he isn't subject to its rules of cyclicality. He's the only other person to know anything of the Aeons or Paths besides Oronyx. And he even knows which Paths are intertwined on Amphoreus. And we know about the Paths of Erudition and Remembrance, but Lygus confirms that not only does a third Path belong to Destruction, but Amphoreus itself is something like a prison containing a Lord Ravager on it, which makes him something like a prison warden. As for the identity of the Ravager, well, there's no way to know for sure yet, but there sure are plenty more theories floating around out there for you to check out. I'll leave a few options down below.
But that brings us to the end of Episode 3. Our next foray into Amphoreus looks like it's going to be dealing with Hyacine and Aquila, which makes sense. Aquila and the sky have been mentioned multiple times throughout this patch, like when Aglaea said that Phainon's going to take over leadership partially because he's the only one capable of taking down Aquila, although I think changing over leadership roles might involve Aglaea's death because her soul's already in really bad shape, and I don't think Phainon will handle that very well. Now, I would speculate on what's going to happen just a little bit more, but I'm a bit late in getting this out, and the Special Program's already aired, so you can see the trailer for yourself. It basically tells you all you need to know. Thank you guys so much for watching till the end of this video, and tune in next time for Episode 4. I'll see you there.