Past 1: Chapter 3 Part 5 The Sultana Truth

The Past I: Sheree Backstory Chapter 3, Part 5: The Sultana Truth Princess Sheree stood breathless by the wide open window frame of her sunlit bedroom, her large black Thoroughbred horse ears twitching aggressively as the warm golden bars of 3:00 p.m. afternoon sunbeams baked the wooden floorboards. Looking out into the open horizon, her mind reeled at the sight of the shattered skyscrapers hanging over a bottomless void. She knew she had exactly zero time left to sit around panicking over spatial paradoxes. Moving with a sharp, calculated shonen intensity, Sheree whirled around and lunged back toward her canopy bed layout. With a fierce, athletic pull of her arms, she violently stripped the heavy silk blankets from her mattress, tying the fabrics together into a dense, unbreakable rope structure. She anchored the top knot securely to the heavy mahogany bedposts, tossing the rest of the makeshift rope straight out of the open glass frame. Forcing her posture rigid, Sheree gripped the silk and stepped backward over the stone window ledge. She refused to look down into the terrifying purple gravity void below, carefully descending the brick walls in her elegant black high heel strap sandals. Dropping down smoothly onto her visible toes, her feet touched the cold stone of a floating staircase anomaly that hovered silently right outside her room block. Princess Sheree: [Sighing with breathless relief, her sweeping long black horse tail swishing tightly against her legs]"Made it... I can use these floating steps to find an exit path out of this crazy castle block before those fake silver guards realize—" 💥 SPLINTERING-CRASH!!! 💥 Right back inside her locked bedroom layout, a heavy plate armor boot violently kicked the oak door frame, shattering the iron locks and deadbolts into wooden splinters in a single frame. Kicking the ruined door panels aside, the two silver-disguised alchemical dark knight minions barged into the empty space, their stolen visors gleaming as they scanned the canopy bed mattress. Disguised Knight 1: "Princess Sheree do we come in please... Wait, she's not here!" Disguised Knight 2: "Something odd move aside... Look at the window grid! The window is wide open and a big blanket is tightly bound on the bedposts! Look down!" Disguised Knight 1: [Leaning out the window pane, spotting her midnight-black hair disappearing down the floating steps] "The princess is escape! She's running straight across the outer courtyard ruins!" Disguised Knight 2: "I might tell lord drago about this immediately! Move your iron boots!" The scene cut straight down to the grand stone hall of the central palace throne room. Lord Drago, standing in his true green-skinned form with his sharp pointy ears and demon horns, sat comfortably on her father's royal king throne, his green fingers tapping the golden armrests. The two panting spy guards sprinted down the aisle, dropping to their knees on the marble floor grids. Disguised Knight 1: "Lord Drago! High emergency! The royal target has completely breached her room parameters!" Lord Drago: [His two normal eyes flashing with instant, comically unhinged shonen rage as he slams his fist into the throne] "She did what?! She escape?! That is clinically impossible! No human or Thiren can escape from the boundaries of an active Hollow sector unless... unless she knew you two are dumb idiots! She probably checked the door metrics when you morons were collecting the dead Great Knights' armor plates! This is a complete disaster! I'll go deal with it myself!" Enchainer-Alpha: "No need for that. I’ll go for you." Emerging silently from the pitch-black shadows behind the throne like a nightmare monolith was the 15-foot tall Deadly Class Triple-S Rank Ethereal Juggernaut. His bone-skull faceplate cast a dense, suffocating cloud of dark blue fire aura that rattled the stained-glass windows, his chest layout pulsing with a hollow black hole core. Lord Drago: [Flashing a massive, unhinged One Piece style villain grin as he throws his arms up] "Excellent! That is a perfect idea, Alpha! You go get her for me right now! Drag her back by her large horse ears if you have to! Meanwhile, I’ll sit right here in the King's throne... and now this entire nation is completely all mine! Ha ha ha ha!" Princess Sheree broke into a frantic, high-speed sprint as she reached the outer stone path of the castle grounds. But the moment her sandals hit the cracked masonry, her cyan-blue eyes froze in profound shock. The entire normal, peaceful castle courtyard she remembered was completely overrun. Roaming through the dark purple mist were hundreds of active Ethereal entities, their growls echoing through the ruins. Realizing she was trapped in an active warzone, Sheree veered toward an open battlefield grid, her heart pounding against her tight strapless black dress. Suddenly, a catastrophic sonic boom ripped through the gravity clouds up above. Crashing down from the sky with the weight of a falling meteor came Enchainer-Alpha! The immense physical impact shattered the stone tiles, kicking up a dense, suffocating wall of dark smoke and soot that completely enveloped her coordinates. Enchainer-Alpha: [His deep, terrifying robotic bass voice vibrating through the smog] "Tell me, princess... just how long are you going to attempt to escape from your own castle? Oh wait... it’s not your castle anymore." Princess Sheree: [Stepping back in sheer psychological shock, pointing a trembling finger standardly at the 15-foot tall monstrosity] "You’re talking...?! How on earth is a mindless Ethereal creature talking directly at me?!" Enchainer-Alpha: [Laughing with a mechanical shonen rumble, his bone-skull faceplate flaring with blue flames] "I am no ordinary Ethereal scum. I am a higher-spec Ethereal entity... a Deadly Rank alpha build that governs this entire sector. You truly have absolutely no idea what actually happened to your heritage, do you? Oh well... I suppose I’ll tell you the truth anyway before I drag you back to the lab. You see, a long time ago, your father was the great king of a massive nation around 130 years ago. But you won’t remember any of it... because you were still a clueless 10-year-old child who couldn't comprehend what really happened here right now at the Sultana Hollow. And now, you are coming with me." Princess Sheree: [Her jaw hardening with fierce royal dignity as she stands her ground, her wide expanded hips keeping her balance firm] "I reject to go back with you! You took my castle... my father's castle! For what exactly?! To rule over a graveyard of broken glass?! There is absolutely nothing left to rule here! What happened to my people?! What did you do to them?!" Enchainer-Alpha: "Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that little detail. See all those citizens and village people around a hundred years ago? Every single one of them turned into an Ethereal mutation... single one of them! Your precious father couldn't stop the spread, so he used his final magical essence to seal the castle away in a perfect pocket safe place loop, so no one in the outside world would ever know about this dimension. But suddenly, the first-generation Void Hunters arrived at the borders to start taking down Ethereals one by one. Luckily for me, they never met me before during their raids, because I hid deep in the shadows, disguising myself into a temporary android body frame to wait for the perfect time! I waited for over a century... and then came Lord Drago. He's the one who gave you that red alchemical wine you were drinking. That wine is our primary transformation potion payload! We didn't know exactly what it would do at first, but now we know that our Deep Green Staff holds a direct alchemical connection to all animal marrow DNA cells. With that light green potion recipe... your human language is going to vanish forever! So what are you going to do now, princess? Come back to our laboratory... or sit and run somewhere completely unknown where absolutely no one is ever going to help you?!" Princess Sheree: [Sweating profusely behind her midnight-black hair strands, her hands clenching into fists] "I’m not going back! I’ll leave this place entirely if I have to! I'll jump into the void before I become your puppet!" Enchainer-Alpha: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s exactly why you’re gonna fail to escape by my hand again! Oh, wait... there is just one tiny thing you forgot to look at, princess. What on earth happened to your nose profile? It looks like it’s about to transform right now." Princess Sheree froze, her cyan-blue eyes widening in total cartoon confusion as her large horse ears twitched violently on top of her head. She raised her hands near her cheeks, her fingers trembling as she touched her facial architecture. Without her noticing it during the intense conversation, the alchemical code had silently expanded into a heavier 3% capacity capacity shift! Her entire face layout remained completely light human skin with zero animal fur, retaining her normal human mouth. But her nose was suddenly enveloped in a glowing, vibrant light green aura effect! Driven by the active light green potion energy, her human nose grew slightly bigger and elongates forward behind her thick hair strands. Princess Sheree: [Her face flushing bright red with pure psychological terror as her breath hitches] "My... my nose...?! No, no, no! My voice... everything feels so deeply funny and wrong...!" [The historical book logs violently snap shut, freezing mid-animation frame as the perspective cracks wide open back inside the live IPC broadcast studio room where the Star Rail characters are gathered around the terminal console layout.] Reaper 800: [Standing imposing by the console desk, his intense blue eyes narrowing as his ivory-white tech-skull half-mask reflects the static bloom] "Ho, Owlbert... get ready. Because we are entering the absolute horror genre of this transformation timeline. Trust me on that." Owlbert: [His feathers puff out in wild cartoon panic as he pulls his neon-blue security blanket completely over his face, his voice cracking] "I knew you were gonna say that! Oh dear Lord! Someone give me a massive security blanket already! My wings are shaking just reading about that alchemical facial rewrite! I can't look at the screen!" Reaper 800: [A dangerous, playful shonen smirk breaking through his voice as his Path of Soul aura drops minor purple sparks] "I got an idea to make this a little more interesting for the studio audience. How about all of you try a 'Try Not to Scare Challenge' right now? Whoever wins this challenge and stays perfectly calm without flinching during Sheree's upcoming structural mutation... gets a permanent, elite stay inside my modern luxury lounge mansion house back in the real world!" The entire Honkai: Star Rail audience froze, every single group tracking the live broadcast feeds across the galaxy instantly tuning their parameters to accept his cosmic bet. Up at The Xianzhou Luofu flagship, Divine Foresight Jing Yuan chuckled softly, adjusting his armor beside a highly composed Fu Xuan and a calculating Yukong, while Yanqing, Yunli, Bailu, and Huohuo nodded their heads in deep agreement. Over at the militaristic Xianzhou Yaoqing flagship, Feixiao threw her head back with a confident grin, slamming a fist onto her big TV console beside a smiling Jiaoqiu and a silent Moze. Down in the Masked Fools' living room, Sampo Koski rubbed his palms together with a sneaky laugh while Sparkle spun her masks in wild excitement. Inside the Herta Space Station, Madame Herta tapped her chin with pure analytical interest next to a nodding Screwllum, while Asta, Arlan, and Peppy prepped their data trackers. Down in the frozen capital of Jarilo-VI, Supreme Guardian Bronya uncrossed her arms, sharing a determined look with Seele, Clara, and Mr. Svarog. Even out at the cosmic restaurant layout, Ashveil—the legendary leader of the Galaxy Rangers—clinked glasses with an unhinged, popcorn-crunching Boothill and a verse-dropping Rappa, accepting the bet simultaneously with the elite IPC Stoneheart directors, Topaz, Aventurine, and Madame Jade, who adjusted her purple glasses with absolute corporate satisfaction. Aventurine: [Tossing a gold coin onto the desk with a clever smirk] "Honestly, I accept the challenge, Reaper. Watching her handle those fake silver guards without slamming her bedroom door was a brilliant, high-stakes move. She plays her cards perfectly. I bet my luck that she survives the storm." The entire multiversal watch party stood locked in complete suspense, their eyes fixed on the frozen monitor screen as Princess Sheree's royal grace faced its ultimate, reality-warping test under the pulsing light of the Time Crystal!