The Gamer who traveled to Honkai: Star Rail

The Aurumatons—part of the Luofu Xianzhou—were standard creations of the Artisanship Commission. They were often dismissed as toys by the Commission's workers, but those who had faced them in combat knew how maddeningly effective they could be.

Taking down one or two Aurumatons? Easy for Pei Guang. But five or more? He'd turn and run without a second thought.

What about using Savory Truefire? Unfortunately, its magical properties only worked on living things. If someone like Screwllum showed up, it would burn, but against Aurumatons? Not a chance. 

The quirks of being a player could be oddly limiting.

As the soldiers of Fire Moth advanced, piloting the Aurumatons toward the Doomsday Beast, Pei Guang activated his Creation Engine. Not to challenge the Doomsday Beast head-on—the Creation Engine was designed to fight smaller constructs, not go toe-to-toe with massive planetary annihilation weapons.

Instead, he had something more creative in mind: picking up Aurumatons and throwing them at the Doomsday Beast!

Under Stelle's control, the launched Aurumatons switched to combat mode mid-air. The rest of the Aurumatons activated their weapons and, with the help of the Creation Engine's precision throws, began their assault.

As Pei Guang's team sprang into action, Elysia and Kevin led the Fire Moth soldiers in their own offensive. Convincing the soldiers to follow Pei Guang's lead wasn't easy: to them, Pei Guang was just some mysterious outsider, no matter how many titles he might claim. But with Elysia and Kevin backing him, their doubts were quelled. If Elysia said they should trust Pei Guang, that was enough.

Once equipped with the armor and weapons Pei Guang had provided, confidence surged among the soldiers. The gear may have looked crude at first glance, but in practice, it proved incredibly effective.

The combat strategy? Simple. Pei Guang's instructions boiled down to: "Press F2+A and let it rip."

Meanwhile, the Doomsday Beast, still scouring the area for its elusive garbage can nemesis, suddenly felt the overwhelming presence of the approaching Aurumatons. It shifted its attention, preparing to annihilate the incoming threat. However, just as it was about to act, its earlier attacks finally bore fruit—a partially buried trash can had been unearthed.

Half of the can protruded from the ground, its lid slightly ajar, revealing the dark abyss within.

A flawless trash can, unmatched in the universe.

In that moment, the Doomsday Beast was captivated. It thought to itself: Only garbage could be worthy of such a perfect receptacle.

Wait… Did that mean the can was calling it garbage?

Though incapable of speech, the Doomsday Beast and the trash can exchanged a profound, unspoken dialogue.

To hell with those robots, I've been ignored!

The Doomsday Beast resolved to destroy this garbage can once and for all.

Elsewhere, aboard a certain warship, two of the Lord Ravagers sat watching a live feed of the chaos. For all their experience leading armies to annihilate countless civilizations, this scene left them utterly speechless.

The Doomsday Beast wasn't the strongest weapon in their arsenal, but it had always been more than sufficient to crush primitive worlds or planets without Pathstriders.

This Earth, however, had turned into a player's personal playground, and the Doomsday Beast's demise was all but guaranteed. Yet at least the previous Doomsday Beast had put up a fight—ultimately falling after its antimatter engine was dismantled by the player's indestructible wooden sword.

In that case, they could at least spin the narrative: the Doomsday Beast battled valiantly, enduring hundreds of exchanges before being defeated.

But this one? It had spent half a day in a futile duel with a trash can. No embellishment could save its reputation now. Across the networks, the only thing people were talking about was the equivalence of a Doomsday Beast… to a trash can.

Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter—just like on certain online forums, as long as you dare to post something, there will always be someone who analyzes it with a straight face. Even if no one actually believes it, it doesn't stop people from enjoying it as entertainment.

While the Doomsday Beast was still being held in place by the inexplicable taunts of a trash can, the first wave of Aurumatons arrived. Never in its wildest calculations did the Beast expect to face an assault by these robots, particularly within the Antimatter Legion's controlled territories.

Dozens of golden spears, brimming with radiant light, pierced into the Beast's massive form. The sheer force of the assault knocked it from the sky, crashing it to the ground with a resounding thud. If the Doomsday Beast had a mouth, it would have surely roared, "This is dishonorable! Using a trash can to bait me and then ambushing me?!"

For Pei Guang, however, concepts like "honor" and "fair play" were irrelevant. "If I can take you down, who cares about honor?" was his philosophy.

Yet something unexpected caught Pei Guang off guard during the battle. The trash can, which he had assumed only fortified "structures" by its definitions, appeared to extend its "Territory Enhancement" effect far beyond his initial expectations. 

By the trash can's logic, if Earth itself was a structure, then everything non-living on Earth—including the Aurumatons—was part of that structure. As tools built to defend the planet, the Aurumatons were thus imbued with the trash can's Preservation blessing.

And so, the cosmic forces of Destruction and Preservation clashed once more. Though humanity had only categorized these forces based on the apparent behaviors of their associated Aeons, the true nature of these powers remained unfathomable. But that did little to change the reality of their battle.

As for who's the most aggrieved participant? The Doomsday Beast!

It had long since abandoned its search for the trash can, only for the trash can's influence to circle back and complicate its life. Adding insult to injury, the Beast remained oblivious to the trash can's involvement, convinced it was dealing with a hidden Trailblazer instead.

Meanwhile, aboard the Xianzhou, Welt Yang, refreshed from a good night's sleep, found himself perplexed. He had spent the previous day meticulously maintaining five Creation Engines stored in a shared space—powerful constructs equipped with cutting-edge weaponry from the Artisanship Commission. Yet today, the storage was inexplicably empty.

"Where are the Creation Engines? They were right here!" Welt muttered, his usually composed demeanor faltering. Suspicious, he opened his mini-map to locate Pei Guang.

Scanning through the Xianzhou, the Astral Express, and Jarilo-VI yielded no results. Puzzled, Welt expanded his search radius, only to notice something peculiar on the far end of his map. After swiping across several sections, he finally found Pei Guang, Stelle, and March 7th—on the opposite end of the galaxy.

"Earth?" Welt's brows furrowed.

The location shown on his map was unmistakable: the Solar System, Earth. The map even displayed an additional detail that left Welt speechless: Earth's designated owner.

"When did Ah Guang become the owner of Earth?"