Earth, Bear the Suffering of All

Patch: 3.6 · Chapter: Back to Earth in Evernight · Mission 06 of 9Previous: Blazing Sun, Illuminate the Path for the Lost · Next: Great Tomb, Hide the Secrets of Incarnations Wiki: https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Earth,_Bear_the_Suffering_of_All

Official summary

As Dan Heng moved further into the Grove, phenomena from "memories" continuously manifested around him. A Mountain Dweller, identifying himself as "Terravox," struck at Dan Heng before mysteriously disappearing. The Dan Feng within the memories of Dan Heng's body, the High-Cloud Quintet from Dan Feng's memories, and even the "war" from Terravox's memories... They all intermingled together. Yet Dan Heng was no longer confused and lost. Breaking through the memory fog, he finally came face-to-face with Terravox, the real demigod of Earth, and accepted the succession of Earth's divine authority... With this new power, Dan Heng navigated deep into the memoria tide realm that Earth had helped create, where he finally discovered you.

Synopsis

This mission is played from Dan Heng's perspective through the game's Fate's Ensemble system — the continuation of the "Dan Heng: Azure Above, Abyss Below" throughline. The Trailblazer does not appear until the closing cutscene; here Dan Heng is the point-of-view protagonist, alone inside Amphoreus, searching for the companion who vanished at the Vortex. Unless noted, everything happens now; the pageants of soldiers, Chrysos Heirs, and Xianzhou friends that swirl through the Grove are memoria-tide phantoms of the past, replayed because Remembrance has warped the ruins.

Into the warped Grove of Epiphany

Dan Heng descends deeper into the "Radiant Scarwood" Grove of Epiphany. In the previous mission (05) the "Blazing Sun" — Phainon's Destruction — burned away the altar that sealed the "Earth" and quelled the memoria tide, and Cerces' sacred tree is now dyed gold. Dan Heng reflects that "Phainon gave his all for [the Trailblazer]," and that with the tide calmed it is finally safe to press further in. A flustered Chimera scampers off; something is awake in the Grove.

A Mountain Dweller confronts him, chastising the "visitor from beyond the sky" for refusing to heed the cries of the "Earth." He announces himself:

Terravox: I am Terravox, avatar of the earth, divine protector of the myriad living beings.

He confirms that golden-blooded demigods are not only Kephale's children (humans) — the offspring of the Earth Titan Georios bear the same duty. Dan Heng, forewarned to beware Terravox, presses: why does the legendary Dromas King, the demigod who supposedly fell, wear a humanoid form? The answer is the Transmutation Arcanum — Dan Heng's own specialty as a "descendant of the Permanence." Terravox reveals that "March 7th" — i.e. Evernight — is why he knows this, and that thanks to her he "escaped into the memoria tide and disappeared from the world's memories." His recorded "fall" was a lie: he abandoned the Flame-Chase to survive, because unlike humans, the beasts of Amphoreus cannot live on in the Worldbearer's memory. But Evernight is "the master of Remembrance," and in the Veil of Evernight he saw Dan Heng's story. A fragmentary Ichor Memosprite stutters keywords — Vidyadhara… the Permanence… dragon transmutation… resurrection — and Terravox lunges, declaring: "The 'Earth' is hungry, and only the Permanence can satisfy it!"

Combat erupts against waves of Ichor Memosprites that shift into figures from Dan Heng's own past — Cloud Knights Patrollers, Disciples of Sanctus Medicus — and a voice from within him speaks of "the fires of abomination" and "that Water-Mirrored Moon." Dan Heng recognizes this as a "disordered memory," a mara-struck madness.

The awakening of "Dan Feng"

After the fight, a presence surfaces from inside Dan Heng's body: the memory of Dan Feng, his previous incarnation, whom the Vidyadhara Preceptors long ago let linger deep in his consciousness rather than fully erase at hatching. Dan Feng offers to be called "Obliviated Memory" instead of his bloodstained name; Dan Heng answers that though they have parted ways, he will never forget him. Dan Feng warns that "all life in the universe covets Permanence" and that Dan Heng will one day succumb as he did — "and as I see it, that day won't be far from the end of this journey." Dan Heng refuses to relitigate the past, states his only concern is bringing his companions home safely, and Dan Feng agrees to accompany him through the ruins as a fighting ally.

Along the way the two encounter more phantoms. Tribbie, Trianne, and Trinnon — replaying an episode from the first Flame-Chase — cheer that Janus's blessing has refilled the Hidden Passage so the Imperator's (Cerydra's) legions can strike from the Grove, and they fret over whether "Terravox will be able to succeed." They do not recognize Dan Heng, which he takes as proof the memory is not his own: it belongs either to Terravox or to the Trailblazer (Dan Feng judges the latter unlikely, since "even the First Genius [Zandar] couldn't determine where [the Trailblazer] went" after the final battle). The messengers direct him toward "Dux Gladiorum" — Hysilens — up ahead. Crucially, Dan Heng resolves to reach a different missing person: someone else vanished alongside the Trailblazer at the Vortex of Genesis, and the Grove is where he can make contact with her.

The Spirithief's aid

Deeper in, past Butterfly Husk Embers, Dan Heng meets the "Spirithief" Bartholos, who blocks the way but agrees to help him clear it with trickery rather than have him waste his strength. Bartholos has sealed his own voice — to stop "that crazy lady with pink hair and red eyes" (Evernight in March 7th's body) from monitoring him. Using the Spirithief's powers, Dan Heng blocks the water outlets to drain a flooded room, and modifies a Prophecy Tablet into a makeshift ladder, opening the route onward.

Hysilens's vigil and the truth of Earth's "fall"

At a pool of spirit water, Dan Heng resonates with the waters of Amphoreus (harder to tame than his Xianzhou home) to summon the specter of Hysilens, the "Ocean" demigod. She recognizes the "green dragonfish" from the Trailblazer's memories, in which she saw the two of them standing side by side at the Scalegorge Waterscape. She recounts that the "stranger" (Evernight) snatched the "Deliverer" away right before her eyes; she tried to send the waters after them, but "layered cliffs blocked the water's current." She warns that "Earth" has abandoned the Flame-Chase — Terravox still lives but is not an ally of the Trailblaze. Dan Heng, resolved to confront the "mad demigod" without conscience-cost since his opponent has become a "vicious beast," is checked by Dan Feng, who hears in that phrasing an echo of his own rationalizations. Dan Heng clarifies his creed:

Dan Heng: I am a Nameless, and what I'm going to do... Is to defend all the hopes that are on the verge of fading away.

Dan Feng concedes: "That is exactly how the 'guard' of the Astral Express should act." Hysilens's specter lends her current — "for it still carries the warmth of Gray Fry" (her name for the Trailblazer) — to guide them deeper.

The path is dense with tide-phantoms. Whispering corrupted memories of the Chrysos Heirs try to lure Dan Heng — "Aglaea" ("Join us"), "Tribbie" ("You are me… we are us"), "Anaxa" ("From permanence gain eternal life"), "Mydei" ("Throw yourself into the forge"), "Castorice" ("Merge as one"), "Hyacine" ("Keep going"), "Cipher" ("Do not run from your fate"), and "Phainon" ("Use the Permanence to fill the 'Earth'"). Meanwhile hostile phantoms of the High-Cloud Quintet — Taoran, Bailu, Jingliu, Jing Yuan, Blade — haunt him with fragments of his Xianzhou past. Terravox's voice rages for "Long's Scion" to fall into oblivion.

The Xianzhou farewell (Dan Feng's memory)

Dan Heng and Dan Feng review a fully-formed memory of Dan Heng's own past — a High-Cloud Quintet gathering before a great battle. Yingxing finds a wine jar left by Baiheng, who could not attend (recalled to a patrol by the Yaoqing for the Yuque's battle); it turns out to be spring water from Thalassa's crystal palace, her joke — wine only tastes good "after a triumphant return." Dan Feng arrives having convinced the Preceptors to send Vidyadhara cloudhymn magi to the frontlines against the Ketu Mirage, knowing "countless Vidyadhara will lose their lives, with no chance at a molting rebirth," because the Vidyadhara cannot share the Alliance's destiny as mere bystanders. Jingliu toasts not to farewell but to honor the soldiers who will not return. She names the question that will haunt any who make such a choice — "Was it worth it?" — and the young Dan Feng answers: "I won't answer it. I will prove it."

Watching, the "Dan Feng" within Dan Heng lays bare the wound at the root of his transmutation crime: losing a dear friend (Baiheng) "can never be considered a victory... It's a failure that torments you for the rest of your life. I could never accept that kind of fate." He confesses he wielded the Transmutation Arcanum to resurrect Baiheng and brought everything "past the point of no return," and that even if he could reverse time he would not choose differently — "Because only I could make that choice and protect all of this." He then turns the question outward:

"Dan Feng": Now, for the sake of your companions, for the sake of those two who walk alongside you... How much are you willing to sacrifice, Dan Heng? Dan Heng: ...Everything.

Dan Heng affirms his companions are "the path I took that led me to where I am now" and will be "beacons for when I am lost... until my next reincarnation." Dan Feng: "Then let me see how you'll carry out your convictions."

Geocles the Mountainbreaker — the false Terravox

Crossing more war-memories of the first Flame-Chase (Dux Fragoris Labienus and Dux Brumalis Seneca rallying legions against the defector Terravox; Dux Carminum Verginia lamenting the cruelty; Dux Helkolithist Apollonius calling the dead "a necessary sacrifice"; Cerydra hailing the "Seismic Walking Dragon" as a titan-slayer), Dan Heng reaches a Chasmic Geocore weeping golden blood "like a heart that has burst open," and arrives at the waiting "Terravox."

Hysilens unmasks him: this is not Terravox but Geocles the Mountainbreaker, "Earth's Dromas Rider," long thought dead. A Mountain Dweller reborn as a memosprite by "Evernight's gift," he has kept watch over "the 'Earth' demigod who was sacrificed to the Flame-Chase plot in vain." He names Dan Heng — Long's Scion — as the "most important offering" in a ritual: once the memoria tide swallows his will, his Transmutation Arcanum will be used to "awaken the fallen Giant Dragon and give the 'Earth' an everlasting body." His grievance: the "tomorrow" the Flame-Chase promised "only ever had a place for humans," never for the beasts. He attacks as a Black Tide's Champion. Rather than take Hysilens's offer to flee through the Hidden Passage toward the Trailblazer, Dan Heng chooses to stay and fight — declaring that the hero of the Mountain Dwellers should not "die an ugly death in delusions of the Permanence," and, of the beast obstructing the Astral Express: "It's my turn to put some pressure on this world."

The true Terravox and the succession of Earth

Geocles is defeated. As Dan Heng asks what deal reduced the Mountainbreaker to this, the real Terravox finally manifests — a frail, dying beast — and offers to "recount the Earth's heaviest past... and sever its deepest delusion." Hysilens fills in the history: Terravox was the Dromas King, the Giant Dragon who swore his life to Geocles' famed Dromas Legion. In the war against the Earth Titan Georios, the Imperator Cerydra could not overcome the "mountain" of the Titan, so she "broke it from the inside" — Terravox's betrayal of Geocles was the key to the Flame-Chase Army's victory. Terravox took the Earth authority and sank into the cliffs, his stone flesh mending the land.

His one unbearable "betrayal": Geocles refused to believe the defection was Terravox's own choice, and rather than surrender to the Imperator, chose to die. That grief is why Terravox later took Evernight's bargain — she asked only that he use the "Earth" authority to hide her tracks, and in return "Time's strange visitor" let Geocles be reborn as a memosprite so the two could speak of their old battles. A thousand years of carrying the memories of everyone he betrayed has shattered his mind; his only wish now is "to rest with them... in the unchanging past."

Terravox points the way to the mission's destination and the next:

Terravox: The deepest depths in Amphoreus. The great tomb where all the past is buried... The one you seek, "Evernight," walked out of that place. Before her arrival, no one knew of its existence.

So the great tomb is where Evernight came into being and where she is now. Dan Heng, understanding, poses to Terravox the very question Dan Feng posed to him — "how much are you willing to sacrifice for the power of the Permanence?" — and Terravox answers, "Everything." But Terravox's sacrifice is selfless: he has grasped that "the 'Earth' will never be able to reach the stars," yet wants "one last effort to give [his compatriots] a chance to move on to the future... even if it is a future I am not able to witness."

Dan Heng offers not resurrection of the fallen dragon but succession: "Give me the Coreflame that burns within you, and allow this immortal body of the Permanence to bear the furnace of life for you." He promises to carry the earth's living things "with this body as an ark" toward "a vast and boundless sea of stars" — a future where all beings Trailblaze side by side, "not a prison made from Remembrance." Terravox, who in the Veil of Evernight's memories had judged Dan Heng "someone with reservations," admits he misjudged his resolve, and relinquishes the divine authority. His dying oath:

Terravox: "You shall dig your own grave and burn in the furnace of rebellion"... I only hope that, after all this time, Father [the Earth Titan] will take me back into their heart.

In a cutscene, Terravox bids Dan Heng "declare to the 'Earth' the name of the new god," and Dan Heng answers: "I am 'Dan Heng'... The one who guards the Trailblaze's way forward!" He becomes the demigod of Earth — his new title Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae.

Farewell to Dan Feng, and finding the Trailblazer

With the succession done, the "Dan Feng" within him — everything Dan Heng "left behind" — has "faded away," transmuted into the power of Permanence. The two say goodbye. Dan Heng resolves to "join this game and become a part of the Era Nova," the only way to face his friends "with a clear conscience." Dan Feng feels the new Coreflame's light and, notably, its heat — "Is this what the Destruction feels like? The light is unexpectedly warm... just like... the fleeting moments when one wakes from a dream" — before dissolving. Dan Heng: "A dragon can only welcome new life by shedding away his old, scarred skin... For the first time in my life, I feel at ease."

Hysilens tells him Earth's "final rebellion" was "to bestow Trailblazing wings upon all living beings." Behind Terravox's scar lies "the deepest depths," where rising steam signals the Trailblazer — trapped in a "bottomless whirlpool" of memoria tide, possibly with Evernight. Dan Heng asks Hysilens to guard him while he works. Where her waters once failed against the "layered cliffs," he now commands them: "the cliffs... are now in the palm of my hand." Hysilens warns that without absolute resolve he cannot cross the tide, that "the search... might stretch on like an evernight without end," and that "wandering through 'Time' is no easy feat." Dan Heng answers that his determination "is even more unshakeable than the 'Earth' itself."

In the closing cutscene (accompanied by the animated short "Trek"), Dan Heng calls on Cerces' giant tree — "witness to Amphoreus" — and follows its roots into the ancient earth. In a long interior monologue he becomes the world's substance ("I will become the bedrock of mountains and bear the cities above... I sweep across the nameless barrens, scattering endless snow and frost"), drifting "in the darkness that was before all else." He realizes he cannot find the Trailblazer "with just my eyes alone" — "Maybe it was never me. Maybe it was always 'you' who could set us free." The Trailblazer's voice greets him — "Long time no see~" — and, in a poker-hand cadence ("Three of a kind... Two pair... Ace... Go"), Dan Heng completes the reunion:

Dan Heng: I am Earth, and all that grows upon the earth. I am "you" ["Trailblaze"].

Key characters

• Dan Heng — POV protagonist. Alone in Amphoreus, he searches for the missing Trailblazer, reconciles with the memory of his past self, defeats the false Terravox, and accepts the Earth Coreflame from the true one — ascending as the demigod of Earth, "Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae." With the Earth authority he descends into the "deepest depths" and finds the trapped Trailblazer.
• "Dan Feng" / Obliviated Memory — The residual consciousness of Dan Heng's prior incarnation, lingering because the Preceptors chose not to erase it. Serves as ally and interrogator, forcing Dan Heng to confront the cost of protecting one's own. Recounts the memory of Baiheng's death and his own dragon-transmutation crime, then fades into the power of Permanence as Dan Heng takes the Coreflame, feeling the Destruction's light as "warm."
• Terravox — The true demigod of Earth (Georios's Dromas King). A frail, dying beast who faked his "fall," allied with Evernight, and abandoned the Flame-Chase to shelter the world's beasts. Reveals he betrayed his lord Geocles to help Cerydra slay the Earth Titan, and has carried that guilt for a millennium. Willingly passes his Coreflame to Dan Heng and dies, points the way to the "great tomb."
• Geocles the Mountainbreaker — Legendary Mountain Dweller hero and Dromas Rider, Terravox's former lord, who chose death rather than surrender to the Imperator. Reborn as a memosprite by Evernight, he impersonates Terravox to trap Dan Heng, intending to use his Transmutation Arcanum to resurrect the "fallen Giant Dragon" and give Earth an eternal body. Defeated as a "Black Tide's Champion."
• Hysilens — The Ocean demigod's specter; one of the last surviving demigods still active (Terravox also survives — hidden, frail, and dying — as this mission itself shows, and Castorice guards the dark currents alongside her). Guides Dan Heng through the Grove, narrates Terravox and Geocles's history, and reveals that Evernight snatched the Trailblazer away. Lends her waters and covers Dan Heng's final dive.
• "Spirithief" Bartholos — Trickery-embers NPC who clears water obstacles for Dan Heng; has sealed his own voice to evade Evernight's ("pink hair, red eyes") surveillance.
• Evernight — Unseen but pervasive; "the master of Remembrance" inhabiting March 7th's body. Her bargains reborn Geocles and hid Terravox; she abducted the Trailblazer and emerged from the "great tomb."
• Trailblazer — Absent until the finale, trapped asleep in a memoria-tide whirlpool at the world's deepest depths; reunites with Dan Heng in the closing cutscene.

Lore notes

• Dan Heng ascends as the demigod of Earth ("Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae"). This is a fifth Coreflame-bearing precedent of note: an outsider (not a golden-blooded Amphoreus native) receives a Titan's divine authority by a dying demigod's free bequest. His stated goal: "join this game and become a part of the Era Nova," giving him standing to act on the Trailblazer's world rather than only observe.
• Terravox / the Earth demigod, fully revealed. Confirms the digest's teaser: Terravox was the Dromas King of Geocles' Dromas Legion, and his betrayal of the Earth Titan Georios from within was the key to the first Flame-Chase army's victory (under Cerydra). His "fall" was staged via a pact with Evernight (hide her tracks in exchange for the memosprite return of Geocles). The Earth authority "perceives the currents of time" and its bearer's stone flesh mends the land.
• The "great tomb." Terravox names "the deepest depths in Amphoreus, the great tomb where all the past is buried" as the place Evernight walked out of and where she now is — directly seeding the next mission, Great Tomb, Hide the Secrets of Incarnations. [?] The tomb's nature and its link to Evernight's origin/identity are the mission's central open question.
• Memosprites of the dead. Evernight (Remembrance) can resurrect the dead as memosprites (e.g., Geocles), who persist so long as someone remembers them. Terravox's rationale for embracing this — "As long as I never forget, they will live on" — makes explicit the Remembrance bargain: existence purchased against oblivion, a "prison made from Remembrance" that Dan Heng explicitly rejects in favor of "Trailblazing."
• The Permanence / dragon transmutation as the coveted power. "The Permanence" (the Vidyadhara path of immortal longevity) and Dan Heng's Transmutation Arcanum are the "power from beyond the sky" both Geocles and the tide-phantoms crave — to resurrect the Giant Dragon and grant Earth an "everlasting body." Dan Heng redirects it: his immortal body becomes an "ark" to carry the earth's life "to a sea of stars," not to freeze it in the past.
• The golden-blood-is-Destruction thread (digest open thread #9) advances. The Earth Coreflame Dan Heng receives registers to Dan Feng as Destruction — "Is this what the Destruction feels like?" — whose "light is unexpectedly warm." Geocles and Terravox both call golden blood "filthy." Consistent with the Lygus/Zandar/Cerydra claim that the ichor is Destruction's agent, though here reframed as warm and life-giving rather than purely corrosive.
• Dan Heng / Dan Feng reconciliation. The mission resolves Dan Heng's relationship to his prior incarnation: he refuses to disown "Dan Feng," relives the High-Cloud Quintet's pre-battle farewell and the origin of Dan Feng's resurrection crime (Baiheng's death, the Vidyadhara joining the Xianzhou frontline against the Ketu Mirage). Dan Feng's creed — "I won't answer [whether it was worth it]. I will prove it" / "only I could make that choice and protect all of this" — is inherited and repurposed by Dan Heng ("Everything," when asked what he would sacrifice for his companions).
• Terravox's dying prophecy/oath: "You shall dig your own grave and burn in the furnace of rebellion." Frames the Earth authority as inherently rebellious — a beast that "rebelled its whole life."
• The memoria tide as Time-maze. Hysilens frames finding the Trailblazer as "wandering through 'Time'" and warns the search "might stretch on like an evernight without end" — tying the Earth authority's power to navigate the tide to Oronyx/Time and the Remembrance-warped Grove.
• "Evernight" surveillance confirmed. Bartholos sealing his own voice to hide from the "crazy lady with pink hair and red eyes" corroborates that Evernight, in March 7th's body, is actively monitoring events in the Grove (advances digest thread #3).
• Perspective note. Played via Fate's Ensemble from Dan Heng's POV; the mission is part of the "Dan Heng: Azure Above, Abyss Below" arc. The many memory-phantom cameos (Chrysos Heirs, the first Flame-Chase's Dux officers, the High-Cloud Quintet) are non-present replays, not live characters.
• Connections:
  • Advances the Trailblazer's disappearance thread (missing since the Vortex Era Nova, 3.5): Evernight snatched them into the "great tomb"; Dan Heng, now Earth demigod, finally reaches them.
  • Advances March 7th / Evernight (digest #3) and Evernight's identity/the tomb (digest #5): the tomb is where "Evernight came into being."
  • Advances the golden-blood mythos (digest #9): the Earth Coreflame reads as Destruction.
  • Continues the cost-of-divine-authority relay (digest #14): Terravox's self-sacrifice mirrors this cycle's other Heirs, though he is a non-human demigod bequeathing to an outsider.
  • Sets up mission 07, Great Tomb, Hide the Secrets of Incarnations, at the destination Terravox names.

Hindsight (full arc)

• Foreshadowing — Dan Heng ascends as Permansor Terrae (Earth): pays off in 3.7, where he is the Pillar of Stone (Permanence) world-pillar and co-writes the ending of As I've Written.
• Foreshadowing — "the great tomb where all the past is buried," which "Evernight walked out of": is the Demiurge Matrix / Scepter kernel (m07), and in 3.7 the very place Herta and Screwllum find that the Demiurge = Cyrene/Mem grew from the Seed of Memory. Cyrene "walking out" of the tomb is literally the Demiurge's origin.
• Reread — the Earth Coreflame feeling "warm," "like the Destruction": confirms golden-blood-is-Destruction (settled canon in 3.7) — the ichor is Destruction's, yet life-giving rather than purely corrosive.
• Reread — the "prison made from Remembrance" Dan Heng rejects: foreshadows 3.7, where the demigods are freed as walking memories yet remain "not yet true life forms," sustained by Cyrene / As I've Written.
• [?] resolved — the tomb's nature and its link to Evernight's origin: it is the Scepter's kernel outside the cycles, where the Demiurge (Cyrene/Mem) originated and where Evernight/March first took form (m07/m09/3.7).

Sources

• Earth, Bear the Suffering of All — HSR Wiki