and it leads to lore
Hi guys! I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
When the v3.0 livestream happened, we learned about a new mechanic for Season 3 called the Singularity Leakage. When they explained it the only thing that felt odd was the name. In practice all it was was a new kind of fissure which made it feel odd they'd give it another name. After playing it, the reason became clear. A spatial fissure in a Hollow only appears in Hollows while these new Singularity Leakages occur outside of the Hollow to take you into the warped space you'd see inside of one. Fine. But going back to the name, how is that a singularity or a leak of a singularity? A spacetime singularity is the point mass of a black hole where for all intents and purposes, volume drops to zero and so density becomes infinite thus creating a massive gravity pocket that curves spacetime infinitely as well. If something like this were to "leak" and on a populated planet at that, it would be catastrophic.
So if the English doesn't quite make sense, my solution has been to go look at the original Chinese. In Chinese the term is actually 泄露奇点 xieluqidian. 奇点 still means singularity but 泄露 isn't a leak. Well it is but the metaphorical kind and that becomes interesting. There's a theory called cosmic censorship and I had actually related it to the Hoyoverse. In short, perhaps miHoYo made use of this theory when they came up with their agents sent by the Imaginary Tree and the rules they create for their universes. In Genshin, this would be Celestia's rule against forbidden knowledge.
Hollows and Fragmenta are the same thing for their respective universes and from a scientific perspective, they would be related to black holes. Fragmenta are created by Stellarons which are star cores in the original Chinese thus stellar black holes since they aren't depicted as emitting any amount of light. Both Hollows and Fragmenta are likely related to the Sea of Quanta and so if we add in Genshin's forbidden knowledge, it could be that the Singularity Leakages will inevitably reveal something humanity wasn't meant to learn about with relation to that sea. That something might just relate to my longterm theory about Phaethon needing to "rewind" in order to truly save New Eridu.
Cissia had an interesting theory about them too. She suggested that the leaks look like broken windows and something inside might be peeking out at them. At the surface level, this is pretty obvious. We actually did encounter things that were creating these leaks and were on the other side potentially watching. Their power felt somewhat like the Abyss Order's teleportation network in Genshin which they access by creating black portals.
Side Note: Cissia just keeps getting more suspicious doesn't she? Earlier in the story, she's the only one looking at the research into the Etheric Other when Phaethon goes in for testing. Billy isn't. Your Proxy's own sibling isn't. Cissia hasn't demonstrated herself to be very educated and yet there she is reading off the board. Isn't that curious?
If we can consider the leakages to be breaches into the Sea of Quanta where we might learn more about how that works it isn't that surprising that these odd new Ethereals would appear from them. They may just be the Voidmatter enemies we encounter in Honkai Impact while traveling the Sea of Quanta, black versions of the same Honkai Beasts we already knew. Here in Zenless we're getting them as white versions of the normally black and gray Ethereals.
What are these new Ethereals called by the way? Enchainer. Just like Singularity Leakage, this doesn't quite tell us anything. In Chinese it is instead 结使. Now we're talking.
结使 jieshi is actually a Buddhist term and short for the nine ties and ten non-virtues, basically vices that prevent people from reaching nirvana. Taking this to Zenless, we are already being told by Pyrois about Phaethon's pride and rage. I've theorized before that Cissia is part of the "Epaphus Faction" which rivaled Phaethon out of jealousy and spite and they're now paying for it. Cissia's name in Chinese is a homophone for Sisyphus. These vices have "enchained" them to their past. Perhaps the qualities of each Void Hunter weapon is also linked to this concept as well given Tailless craves blood and the Qingming Sword drains away existence by starting off with memories. Perhaps it will be coming to terms with this and achieving inner peace that can truly fend off the whispers of the Creator. This might be how Phaethon finally takes control of Pyrois and eventually enhances it into upgraded forms named after the other horses of the sun chariot.
Finally, what if the Enchainers aren't what Cissia was actually talking about? What if she meant the Creator itself? I've had another theory that the Creator isn't necessarily the malevolent force it's been portrayed to be and instead might just be. To be fair, in the end what the Sea of Quanta really represents is entropy which would result in the most stable form matter could ever take, totally inert. From its perspective, we living beings are what's causing any of the conflict in any universe just by existing as globs of collected matter. In that case, dealing with the vices might facilitate the plan to bring the Creator to the side of humanity the way Kiana got the Cocoon of Finality on humanity's side in HI3.
It's great what you can learn about the game by looking at the localization, not being able to make sense of it and then using the original Chinese to get a better grasp of what the devs might be up to. To review:
- Singularity Leakages might reveal hidden information about the Creator that will play out late in the game's current story.
- Cissia points out that something might be peeking out from the leakages and that ends up being the Enchainers.
- Enchainers might relate to how the Creator manipulates humanity in Zenless and overcoming that will be how Phaethon takes control over Pyrois.
- Or the Enchainer reference may refer to the Creator itself and humanity's path towards pacifying it.
Topic originally created on July 12th, 2026.