In the depths of an underground research facility belonging to the Schicksal Organization's West Asia Branch, a labyrinthine prison hidden from the world.
I huddled in my cell as a gaunt young man with disheveled black hair. Clad in threadbare rags, my emaciated frame bore the scars of endless torment. Suddenly, my cracked, parched lips twisted into a grotesque, predatory grin.
I had become the Tenth Herrscher of the current era's Herrscher of Dominance.
Also known as the Thousand Herrscher.
I was thrust into this world through some inexplicable twist of fate. My early experiences followed the tired tropes of countless stories: one day in late autumn November 24, 2013.
I awoke in a reality that mirrored the Honkai Impact 3rd game I knew so well.
In my original life, I had been a dedicated (Captain), a veteran player who logged in daily, drawn to the valkyries unyielding spirit.
I admired those who fought selflessly for the world's beauty, yearning for their courage while admitting I lacked it myself.
So, when I realized my arrival predated the Third Honkai Eruption, a spark ignited within me: If I can't be a hero, I can at least support them.
I could thwart Cocolia's schemes, for instance.
In my memories, her machinations doomed millions in Nagazora City to a man-made catastrophe.
Worse, it awakened Raiden Mei as the Third Herrscher, condemning her to years of guilt and self-imposed torment.
So much as she later volunteered to have a micro-bomb implanted in her heart to prevent her from becoming a herrscher.
I knew the original timeline: humanity would prevail against extinction, even birthing a "God of Earth." But the cost was steep, regrets piled upon regrets, lives shattered beyond repair.
"If I can mend even a few of those," I thought, "like saving Teacher Himeko, or preserving the Promised Land so the heroes of the previous era could witness humanity's triumph over the Finality… wouldn't that make this story truly beautiful?"
With that resolve, I stayed in Nagazora City despite the looming disaster. I sought out Raiden Mei, still innocent of her latent power, and shared critical intel: Cocolia's plan to frame Ryoma for economic crimes, stripping Mei of her protections and exposing her to unimaginable dangers.
I introduced her to the basics of Honkai, earning a fragile trust before urging her to warn her father. I withheld details about the Third Herrscher to spare her panic. Ryoma, as an Anti-Entropy Executor, should handle the rest and avert the tragedy.
Or so I hoped.
I never learned the full fallout.
The very next day, Cocolia's forces ambushed me. Surrounded by elite operatives in heavy armor, I fled in vain.
Mechs thundered after me, and then… her. Bronya Zaychik, the world's deadliest assassin, atop the Charon List for years.
Against her precision and my amateur evasion skills, resistance was futile.
My joints dislocated in the struggle, I was captured. In the months that followed, Bronya vanished from my sight, but Cocolia's "hospitality" did not. Locked in her underground lair, I endured interrogation straight out of a nightmare, torture designed to break the unbreakable.
To my surprise, my willpower held firm. I revealed nothing sensitive, knowing Cocolia's "Civil War Phantom" infamous reputation; any slip could unleash even greater chaos. And once my secrets dried up? Oblivion awaited.
Death tempted me often, but a seed of darkness took root: revenge against Cocolia. Strangely, truth serums and psy-ops failed against me, as if some unseen force shielded my mind. Clinging to that hatred, I survived, until the Third Honkai Eruption exploded in late March 2014, just as scripted.
Chaos engulfed everything. Cocolia fled Nagazora without sparing me a thought, abandoning the facility.
Days blurred into agony until a new figure arrived: Rita Rossweisse, Schicksal's investigator from the Far East Branch. With effortless grace, she uncovered the hidden base and found me, emaciated, irradiated by Honkai energy, teetering on the edge of becoming a Deadwalker. Yet, miraculously, the symptoms receded.
To Schicksal's scientists, I was a prize: a presumed Anti-Entropy test subject with unnatural resilience. Transferred to the West Asia Branch, I vanished from the surface world. No more sun, no more freedom, only endless, clinical horror far worse than Cocolia's crude methods.
I became less than human: a resource, dissected and reassembled like the immortals in tales of "Ajin." Probes, injections, vivisections, each day a fresh hell, eroding my sanity.
Until today.
In the shadowy subspace, facing the colossal Theater of Domination, a structure etched into my memories, I stood silent at first. My vacant eyes stared ahead, a puppet devoid of strings.
"Hehe…"
"Ha!"
"Hahahahaha!!!"
The Herrscher core pulsed in my chest, a singular force ready to splinter into a thousand. I was its core vessel, its true host.
I laughed, my face contorted in manic glee, like a demon unchained. Madness had claimed me long ago; my eyes held no spark of life, only hollow voids reminiscent of Emiya Kiritsugu after the Grail's curse.
All that remained was the obsession, no longer a seed but a towering thorned vine.
"Nearly four years of torment," I rasped, "and now this gift falls into my lap."
"Good! Very good! Excellent!"
Standing before the Theater's gates, my expression twisted like Gojo Satoru fresh from enlightenment, or damnation, I raised my arms skyward.
"From this moment on, in this world…"
"I will have my revenge!"