Papyrus, Read the Blasphemer's Will

Patch: 3.2 · Chapter: Through the Petals in the Land of Repose · Mission 03 of 10 (plus 3 side missions) Previous: Olive, Cast to the Conference Chair · Next: Debate, Discourse Without Spears Wiki: https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Papyrus,_Read_the_Blasphemer's_Will

Official summary

After the black tide devastated the Grove, Dan Heng returned with Hyacine's help to salvage data on Sky Titan. During this search, the two stumbled upon records about Anaxa. As they dug deeper, they uncovered Anaxa's true goal: To fuse himself with the Titan's Coreflame.

Synopsis

This mission is played through the Fate's Ensemble system from Dan Heng's perspective (subtitle: "Dan Heng: Pearl-Diver Beneath the Ruined Tree"). It runs on two braided timelines: Dan Heng and Hyacine's investigation of the ruined Grove now, and — surfacing at the end — flashbacks of Anaxa's youth plus a present-time confrontation at Kephale's altar. Continuity note: since 3.2's first mission, the Trailblazer's Trial of Time has revealed that they died the moment they fell into Amphoreus and now persist only as a "walking memory"; their life "hangs by a thread," which drives Dan Heng's search here.

Return to the ruined Grove of Epiphany

Dan Heng and Hyacine stand beneath the Great Tree — the divine body of the Reason Titan Cerces — in the black-tide-ravaged "Murmuring Woods" Grove of Epiphany. Hyacine notes that Dan Heng seems oddly unmoved by the sight and "strangely familiar with the city around the Great Tree"; he deflects it as "something from the past that I won't go into." Hyacine recalls looking up at Cerces as a child and dreaming of climbing to the treetop to be closest to the sky.

Their errand is spelled out: the Grove holds the richest research on the Sky Titan Aquila, whom Hyacine — a Sky Priest whose forebears worshiped Aquila — knows better than anyone. Dan Heng silently deduces that Aglaea sent Hyacine as his guide because she likely intends Hyacine to undertake a trial of the Sky in the future. Hyacine states plainly that Aquila is the god who imprisoned Dan Heng and the Trailblazer in Amphoreus:

"The Titan that imprisoned you and (Trailblazer) here in Amphoreus is none other than Aquila themself..." — Hyacine

Dan Heng adds a second objective: gather any documents on the Death Titan (Thanatos), hoping Amphoreus's unusual "rules that govern life and death" and a possible parallel case in the Grove's archives might yet save the Trailblazer. In his private musings he crystallizes several ideas that thread through the mission — that Titans, unlike Aeons, can communicate with humans, be overpowered, and have their divinity inherited ("a lot more similar to humans than Aeons"), and that the Chrysos-Heir-to-demigod ascension feels unnervingly like a selection process. The two split up to cover more ground.

The Scholars' Debates and the skyship heresy

Searching among the ash-twisted corpses of black-tide monsters, Dan Heng recovers a scroll, "The Scholars' Debates (I)" — a fragmentary record of a Venerationist scholar arguing with a Nousporist scholar about the fallen city-state "that dared touch the sky." The Venerationist calls the sky-reaching state a meaningless mistake; the Nousporist counters that "making a mistake does not mean the act was meaningless," reading the state's reduction to ash as a meaning achieved through sacrifice.

Dan Heng then finds Hyacine surrounded by black-tide monsters (her Sky Priest blessing carries the light of Amphoreus, which the black tide is quick to detect); he helps her cut them down. She hands him "The Scholars' Debates (II)," continuing the same argument: the Venerationist sage Euthyphro spars with an unnamed interlocutor who proposes examining things "from another perspective" (standing on one's head puts the sky below), and who declares himself "the wasp that stings the dromas." The interlocutor suggests the sky-tyrant's defeat merely proved that "the Skyship was the wrong path" to Aquila — not that reaching the sky is impossible. Euthyphro names the blasphemer directly:

"Anaxagoras, you impious blasphemer, mark my words — you will eventually answer for your sacrilege... I doubt your students — or that young teaching assistant girl — have any idea what secret research you're truly conducting..." — Euthyphro

Speaking with Hyacine: who is Anaxa

Dan Heng recognizes the name: Anaxa(goras) — the scholar who fused with the Coreflame of Reason. Hyacine is startled that Anaxa researched the Sky at all; Phainon had warned that Anaxa "might be opposed to the Flame-Chase Journey," and Hyacine confirms "might" is an understatement — Anaxa has never venerated the gods nor believed the prophecy, and is branded a heretic even in the liberal Grove, yet is the very "blasphemer" that Cerces favors.

Combining the two scrolls, Hyacine identifies them as consecutive conversations in one setting, and answers Dan Heng's questions:

• The Venerationists are one of the Grove's seven schools of thought, all founded on the ideologies of Thalesus the First Scholar; the Venerationists revere the Titans most. Their sage Euthyphro is Anaxa's opposite — "on the scales of Talanton, Anaxa and Euthyphro would be placed on opposite sides to achieve balance."
• The skyships are proverbial: Aquila's retribution is merciless, so building giant sky-faring ships is futile. (Hyacine jokingly wonders whether a "supercharged mini Tribbie cannon" could slip past.)
• Anaxa's field — the Nousporists study alchemy applied to soul repair. Whatever Anaxa hides, Hyacine says, "it's likely what lies beneath his eye patch."

Hyacine relays Anaxa's creed — "Every failure brings us one step closer to the truth" — and his reading of the skyship crash: not proof of impotence, but the first step toward breaking free of the earth's shackles, which is precisely why it provoked Aquila's wrath. Grove research on Aquila, dominated by Venerationist sacrificial rites, dwindled after the incident. She confirms Anaxa is running secret experiments even she, his assistant lecturer, knows nothing about.

The Library of Philia and the blasphemer's trial

The pair proceed to the Library of Philia, the Grove's book repository (holding the seven schools' works plus philosophy, ballads, and religious texts from outland cities, which had to "contribute knowledge of equal value" to learn from the Grove). Deeming the ruins unsafe, they resolve to use the biblioslate to search for needed texts and read them back in Okhema, while Dan Heng collects loose scrolls.

Among them is a stack of unopened complaint letters against "Anaxagoras 'The Blasphemer,'" never even read by their target. Hyacine recounts Anaxa's reputation as "the Great Performer": he founded his school by reading his own inflammatory work aloud, and was hauled to "the seat of judgment" — really a debate in which he had to answer every allegation or be expelled:

• Allegation 1 (Titans made the seas, skies, and earth — so did they make the mountains and rivers too?). However the player answers on Anaxa's behalf, the record shows Anaxa cited past Flame-Chase Journeys as proof that humans can take over a Titan's divinity.
• Allegation 2 (that he defiles souls rather than studying them). Rumor holds Anaxa used one of his own eyes as an alchemical ingredient, hence the eye patch — but it could never be proven.
• Final question ("Have you any respect for the gods?"). After a silence, Anaxa answered only: "I have never denied that Titans are meant to be noble constructs" — pointedly leaving unsaid that they are noble.

Anaxa was allowed to remain in the Grove as a tolerated heretic. Hyacine then remembers that each of the Seven Sages (save the nominal Chief Sage) keeps a private sanctuary off-limits even to the Library's archivists — including Anaxa's alchemy lab, hidden between the cornerstones.

Anaxa's hidden lab: the transmutation research

Threading through a maze of trees, they reach the lab and find it stripped bare — materials, matrix diagrams, and even the lab's seal all gone, with no defense mechanisms left behind. Only a single intact bookshelf remains. On it, Dan Heng finds the materials Anaxa had requisitioned ("Titan Creations," "The Universality of the Soul," "Alchemy Doctrine") and, tellingly, A Study on the Chrysos Heirs' Background.

"A Hastily Written Journal (I)" lays out Anaxa's investigation into the origin of golden blood. He notes that every Chrysos Heir he examined has ancestry tied to Titans or their divine authorities — the Holy Maiden of Janusopolis (Tribbie/Trianne/Trinnon), Aglaea of the Mnestia priestly family, the Prince of Castrum Kremnos (Mydei), Hyacine of the Twilight Courtyard — yet he himself shows no such connection. The glaring anomaly is Castorice, "the Servant of Death from Aidonia," whose lineage is neither priestly nor demigod, but who has "walked the earth for at least a millennium with the power to grant 'Death' to humans." He pivots to the dragon legends of Styxia, where "soul" was alchemically extracted from dragon corpses (dragons being Titan creations), and hypothesizes reversing the process: re-fusing human souls with Titan creations to purify golden blood toward absolute divinity. "This theory must be tested."

"A Hastily Written Journal (II)" — with the crucial alchemical formulae already removed, leaving only reasoning — records that this first approach failed: fusing human souls with Titan creations does not purify golden blood; even pure creations are contaminants; Chrysos Heirs are fundamentally closer to the Titans than the creations are. His hypothesis must therefore point at the Titans themselves — and since living Titans can't be restrained and dead ones offer nothing, the perfect subject is a dying Titan:

"Only by understanding the fundamentals of creation can we ensure perfection at the moment of everything's birth. Through my own hands, I will melt a Titan and reach the true essence of the soul..." — Anaxa's journal

The blasphemer's true will

Hyacine pieces it together: Anaxa's hidden "real blasphemy" was soul transmutation — reconstructing human souls by alchemy. She then reframes the Grove disaster. Officially, when the black tide struck, an accident during the evacuation of Cerces' Coreflame killed Anaxa, and Cerces took over his body to "resurrect" him. But — she reasons — what if it was no accident? A dying man out of time would test his theory at any cost. Her conclusion:

"When the black tide came, the true reason Anaxa headed to the Luminary Throne was... to transmute and fuse himself with the Titan's Coreflame." — Hyacine

He did not succeed, because Cerces made the same decision first and implanted itself into him — hence the surprise on Anaxa's face afterward. The formulae are gone; his research continues. With only one Titan left in the world, the two realize where he must be headed. As the screen fades to black:

"He's after Kephale!" — Hyacine & Dan Heng, together

Audience at the Worldbearing Altar

The scene shifts to Anaxa's side (framed by the mission note that Anaxa, "as one of the living dead, can perceive 'precious memories' others cannot," now preparing for transmutation).

Flashback — young Anaxa and Empedocles. Beneath a projected night sky, Anaxa asks his teacher Empedocles whether the sky is real. Empedocles explains it is a mere educational projection — astronomers using the Titans' power to cast "nights of the past," much as Okhema's sky is lit by Kephale's Dawn Device. Anaxa concludes Okhema's sky is fake too. Empedocles cautions that "only a child would expose a trick and be proud of it" — people feign ignorance because they have no other choice. Anaxa insists they have already "walked out of the fire-lit cave of ignorance" and that rather than gaze at a fabricated sky forever, he should seize "the projection device" himself. Empedocles confesses Anaxa long ago sowed doubt in him; as a Venerationist sage his soul is bound to the Great Tree (Cerces), his golden blood is thin, and his days are numbered — he cannot verify his own doubts about golden blood and the human soul. Anaxa vows to do it for them both. Empedocles agrees to fight for Anaxa's rights at the next sages' meeting and sends him off to found his own school:

"Find out what we are... become the one who conquers the ultimate truths of the world." — Empedocles

Present — Worldbearing Altar: Audience Hall. Speaking through Anaxa, Cerces observes that Anaxa did not climb all this way to Kephale merely to ask questions. Anaxa admits it, refusing to prostrate like a dromas (he is "a human, standing tall on two feet, possessing both intellect and pride"), and cites the Styxians, who chained the mad Ocean Titan Phagousa behind a dam — proof that "Titans are simply a force that mankind has yet to find a way to tame." When Cerces asks why he doesn't simply brave the trial per the prophecy, Anaxa answers that he wants far more: to grasp the source of life and learn "what we really are." Thanks to Cerces, he says, he has verified that the soul ceases to exist in "Death" — but where there is death there is life, and the one remaining unknown is how a soul is born. In his own "journey unto death," he has already drawn a conclusion.

Castorice arrives to keep watch:

"(Trailblazer)'s life hangs by a thread, I must ask you to refrain from taking any unnecessary steps." — Castorice

Anaxa agrees to give her the answer she wants — the truth of the Death Titan and the Trailblazer's survival — but only by "equivalent exchange," demanding his own price. Castorice accepts without asking the cost:

"This may be the only time I can ever save someone's life. There is no need for me to think twice." — Castorice

Anaxa then delivers the mission's central reveal. In the realm of the dead he overheard "a conversation between heroes," one of whom looked like Cerces but called herself Calypso — the name Cerces once made up on a whim for Castorice, and which Cerces insists belonged to no Sage of the Grove. Since the living cannot enter that realm, Anaxa reasons, those likenesses were souls of the past:

"Those fallen heroes are the mortal incarnations of the Titans before their ascensions to godhood. The gods aren't master creators born out of thin air, and they are no different from humans — because they all evolved from one." — Anaxa

Cerces is unsatisfied (if it was once human, where do humans come from?), and Castorice protests that none of this locates Thanatos. Anaxa declares he will simply have "this supreme being" — Kephale — tell them everything. Asked if he can revive a Titan, he says neither humans nor gods return from death — but from "a different perspective," the problem solves itself, "just like what you did to me," Cerces. The mission ends on his intent:

"If I'm reborn as Kephale, I can rebuild the world and all within it as they once did. Simple, is it not?" — Anaxa

Key characters

• Dan Heng — Player-controlled here via Fate's Ensemble. Returns to the ruined Grove to salvage Sky-Titan (Aquila) research and Death-Titan (Thanatos) records that might save the dying Trailblazer; pieces together Anaxa's true goal. Shows unexplained familiarity with the Grove/Great Tree ("something from the past I won't go into").
• Hyacine — Sky Priest and Grove assistant lecturer, sent as Dan Heng's guide (implicitly being groomed for a future Sky trial). Narrates Anaxa's history and reputation, and voices the deduction that Anaxa deliberately sought to fuse with a Coreflame — and now targets Kephale.
• Anaxa (Anaxagoras) — The absent subject of the whole investigation, then revealed in a present-time confrontation. His "real blasphemy" is soul transmutation; having failed to fuse with Cerces' Coreflame (Cerces beat him to it), he now intends to fuse with Kephale and be reborn as the Worldbearing Titan to remake the world, learn the origin of the soul, and locate Thanatos. Bargains with Castorice by equivalent exchange.
• Cerces (Reason Titan) — Resides within Anaxa; spars with him at the altar, disputing his claims and denying knowledge of "Calypso." Its earlier self-preservation (implanting itself in the dying Anaxa) is now recast as the very method Anaxa hopes to replicate on Kephale.
• Castorice — Sent to watch Anaxa; agrees to his unnamed price without hesitation, because striking this bargain is a rare chance for her — the "Servant of Death" — to save rather than end a life (the Trailblazer's). Her millennium-long death power and unknown lineage are flagged in Anaxa's notes.
• Empedocles — NEW (in flashback): Anaxa's teacher, a Venerationist sage whose soul is bound to Cerces' Great Tree, with thin golden blood and numbered days. He seeded Anaxa's doubt, defended his right to found a school, and charged him to "find out what we are."

Lore notes

• Titans were once mortal humans/heroes — Anaxa's central conclusion: the Titans are not born-divine creators but ascended mortals ("they all evolved from one"). The "Calypso" seen in the realm of the dead is Cerces' own mortal soul-of-the-past. This directly advances the running "what are we?" question and reframes Amphoreus's whole cosmology. [?] If Titans were once human, Cerces' rebuttal stands open: where do humans themselves come from?
• Anaxa's plan — to transmute and fuse himself with Kephale's Coreflame, be "reborn as Kephale," and rebuild the world; this is meant to also reveal the soul's origin and Thanatos' whereabouts (and, per his deal with Castorice, save the Trailblazer). Sets up Mission 04 ("Debate, Discourse Without Spears"). [?] Whether Kephale is truly dead, merely dying/silent, and what happens if Anaxa succeeds.
• Soul-transmutation research — Anaxa's arc of hypotheses: golden blood cannot be purified by fusing human souls with Titan creations (creations are contaminants; Chrysos Heirs are closer to Titans than creations are), so the true subject must be a dying Titan — "I will melt a Titan and reach the true essence of the soul." Grounds the Nousporist "equivalent exchange" alchemy of soul⇄divinity.
• Chrysos Heirs' bloodlines — every studied Heir descends from Titan priest or royal lineage (Tribbie's Holy Maiden line, Aglaea's Mnestia priesthood, Mydei's Kremnoan royalty, Hyacine's Twilight Courtyard). Anaxa himself has no such connection, and Castorice is a total anomaly: no priest/demigod lineage yet 1,000+ years wielding Death. [?] What criteria Kephale used to create golden blood / select the Chrysos Heirs.
• Aquila (Sky Titan) — the hundred-eyed colossal bird whose vigil imprisons Amphoreus (the sky-seal keeping the Trailblazer and Dan Heng trapped). A sky-reaching city-state was reduced to ash by Aquila's retribution; the "skyship" is the proverbial failed attempt to break the seal. Anaxa's heresy reframes the skyship crash as merely the wrong path to the sky, not proof the sky is unreachable.
• The Grove of Epiphany — seven schools of thought, all founded on Thalesus the First Scholar; Venerationists (Titan-worshipers; sage Euthyphro) vs Nousporists (soul-alchemists; sage Anaxa) balance "on the scales of Talanton." Other schools named: Caprists, Erythrokeramists, Lotophagists. Institutions: the Library of Philia; each Sage's private cornerstone sanctuary; the biblioslate. Anaxa is nicknamed "the Great Performer" and "a dromas draped in finery."
• Kephale's Dawn Device — the mechanism illuminating Okhema's perpetual "sky"; framed (with the Grove's projected night sky) as a fabricated illusion — Anaxa's "fire-lit cave of ignorance" (a Platonic-cave motif) that he means to seize control of.
• The Luminary Throne — the site of Cerces' Coreflame in the Grove, where Anaxa deliberately went to attempt fusion when the black tide struck (officially framed as the "accident" that killed him and prompted Cerces' resurrection of him).
• Styxia / Styxians — a people who chained the mad Ocean Titan Phagousa behind a dam; home of dragon legends where "soul" was alchemically extracted from dragon corpses (dragons being Titan creations). Anaxa's proof that Titans are "a force mankind has yet to tame."
• The Trailblazer's plight — per 3.2's Trial of Time, the Trailblazer died on falling into Amphoreus and persists as a "walking memory"; their life "hangs by a thread." Dan Heng's Death-Titan search and Castorice's bargain with Anaxa are both bent toward saving them.
• Connections:
  • Advances open thread (3.1 #20): Anaxa & Cerces — "what exactly are we?" — his Death-experiment with Castorice is now underway, and his conclusion (Titans are ascended mortals) plus his plan (become Kephale) are revealed.
  • Advances open thread (3.1 #13): Castorice's tie to Death/Thanatos — she trades an unnamed price to Anaxa to learn Thanatos' whereabouts and to save a life for once.
  • Advances open thread (3.1 #10): route home / Aquila's sky-seal — Aquila named explicitly as the jailer of Amphoreus.
  • Advances open thread (3.1 #25): Hyacine's future Sky trial — Dan Heng infers Aglaea sent Hyacine here to prepare her for it.
  • Advances open thread (3.1 #18): remaining Titan situation — Kephale confirmed as the last Titan still present in the world proper (Aquila remains sealed in the sky) and Anaxa's target; Thanatos still missing.
  • Builds directly on Mission 02 ("Olive, Cast to the Conference Chair"): Anaxa's ~15-day countdown from Cerces' incompatibility, his alliance with Caenis/the Council via Lygus, his ascent to Kephale's divine vessel, and the flashbacks of losing his sister to the black tide and sacrificing an eye to Thanatos.

Sources

• Papyrus, Read the Blasphemer's Will — HSR Wiki
• Cached wikitext: sources/wikitext/3.2/03-papyrus-read-the-blasphemers-will.wiki
• Context consulted: sources/wikitext/3.2/01-spindle-laboring-to-weave-the-tapestry-of-time.wiki, sources/wikitext/3.2/02-olive-cast-to-the-conference-chair.wiki, meta/story-so-far.md

Hindsight (full arc)

• Foreshadowing — Dan Heng's "unexplained familiarity" with the Grove/Great Tree pays off in 3.6 (Back to Earth in Evernight): his past self Dan Feng binds him to Amphoreus's Earth line, and he ascends as Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae, the Pillar of Stone.
• Foreshadowing — Aquila named "the Titan that imprisoned you here" and Hyacine quietly groomed for a Sky trial both pay off in 3.3 (The Fall at Dawn's Rise): Hyacine claims Aquila's Coreflame and ascends the Sky demigod.
• Reread — Anaxa's golden-blood research. His finding that Heirs sit "closer to the Titans than creations are" and that Castorice is the anomaly is recolored by 3.4: golden blood is Destruction's (Phainon/NeiKos496's ichor), scattered across cycles, not Kephale's.
• Reread — "Titans were once mortal heroes; history is cyclical." True within the fiction, but 3.4 exposes the deeper frame — the "cycles" are a discarded Erudition Scepter's deep-learning extrapolation under Nanook's gaze, computing the Lord Ravager Irontomb.
• [?] resolved — Cerces' rebuttal, "where do humans come from?": answered 3.7 — the "first Nouspore" is Cyrene / PhiLia093 / Amphoreus's Heart.
• [?] resolved — whether Kephale is truly dead: Kephale's Coreflame passes to Phainon the Worldbearer (3.3/3.4); "Kephale" was Khaos, an ascended mortal, and the Worldbearing trial is an endless duty rather than a death.