Star Rail 4.6 Story - Who is Nihilux? Like, there's something more...

Patch 4.6 of Honkai: Star Rail has arrived, and while exploring Astropolis, we learned a few secrets about what is really happening in Planarcadia. Honestly, though, there are more questions than answers coming out of this patch; they seem to be saving everything for the very last patch to build up hype.

The first answer we get is about Kuchiba. Her name literally translates to "mouth and teeth," so I was expecting her to be related to the Voracity, and it turns out that was an easy guess. She's a discarded fragment of the former Voracity, a small piece that learned to enjoy wishpower instead of devouring, and she decided to work as a policewoman.

I'll be honest, Nihilus looks dangerous here, but at the same time so damn hot. *pats Aha's head*

Kuchiba switch of personality between the boring serious officer and the crazed leviathan was nice.

She still has her original power, but doesn't seem to be an enemy. Honestly, it would be a shame otherwise. I quite like her look, including her clothing choices, and I wonder if there's a chance she'll be playable in the future. If we're going to get Aha as a playable character, why not get part of the Voracity, too? That only seems fair!

The mystery surrounding the incident from 15 years ago was also clarified: it turns out the remains of the murderer were collected by the IPC and used to create the Lighthouse and continue the experiments. Yabuli was a crazed maniac who thought he could control the Voracity. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "people can change" angle, especially considering his actions, but I guess he died saving the Imagenae, so...

I have to say the fashion sense of the voracity is something I quite dig. Look at that stocking, Kuchiba you rock!

Didn't like this bit much, but then again I'm not that into superhero things anyway so...

And now for the important bit: who is Nihilux, really? Everything seemed to point to her being Aha, and she said as much herself, but that felt way too underwhelming for a true reveal. Things got spicy, though, when Asat Pramad confirmed that he witnessed Aha die long ago, and he himself doesn't know what Nihilux actually is.

Is she the Voracity wearing the skin of Aha? Or is it Aha having absorbed the Voracity? Or, as Asat suggested, are we about to witness the birth of a totally new Path unrelated to either of them? What would a mix of Voracity and Elation even look like? That's going to be the crux of the next patch, as the protagonist is being carried by her to the final fight. But can she be trusted?

Pearl turned out to be an exception in the IPC, someone with some morals. I know I know there's Topaz too apparently, but still...

This is from the event last patch, but I thought back about it and the whole 'traitor within the stonehearts' that Aventurine is chasing.

On the negative side, the patch was quite short, offering less than three hours of content, making it one of the smallest patches I can remember playing in this game. I hope they're preparing to go all out in the next patch for the grand finale, as I don't want the fight against the Voracity to be just a minor detour.

Now we're back to the waiting game, with 42 days separating us from the next patch. There are quite a few ongoing events that I'll go through later, hopefully better than the literal auto-play games we got last patch. That "choose characters and watch" minigame was honestly ridiculously bad...