Fate’s Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

Five stars since I know I’m writing peak rn. Anyways, just as a quick explanation, unlike my other fic, this is an actual verse crossover instead of a single character being put into Shadow Slave. This is a harem, but I won’t be putting in more than 10 girls. That would be way too much for me to write effectively. Sunless is the main protagonist, and none of the main cohort (except my goat Mordret if he counts) exists I this fic. Sunless is taking the place of the Trailblazer in HSR. If you have any questions, feel free to ask by replying to this comment.

Honestly, it was unreadable unless you have read Shadow Slave before. The author kept spamming some terms and keywords that was from there without explaining it.

im surprised theres not alot more comments or reviews on this its quite literally one of the best fanfics for shadow slave anyways peak is all i can describe

I was looking for copper and found gold I don't understand how this hasn't made it to the top yet. I look forward to continuation and new stories Author-san, keep creating and don’t give up, the audience will definitely find you~

An honest review. Writing Quality? It's good. Stability of Updates? Also good. Now... here's where the problems start. First of all, the author clearly puts effort into making things readable. He explains stuff when needed, adds the right info, and does his best to help the reader understand what’s going on. But honestly? It's impossible to enjoy the story. I'm writing all of this with the understanding that reading Shadow Slave is mandatory before even touching a single chapter of this fic. Some of my complaints might be related to the original character from Shadow Slave (and if that’s the case, guess I’m dropping that from my reading list too :P). ===== 1. The protagonist’s personality is EXTREMELY inconsistent and honestly annoying. I wouldn’t mind his personality if it was consistent, but the dude feels like a totally different person every five chapters. Like the author forgot what he wrote before and just rewrote the character on the fly. One moment he’s cold and calculated, talking about killing innocent guards and even his mentor—someone his past self literally said was super trustworthy. Then the next minute he’s acting like some soft, clueless dude getting insulted and stepped on with zero resistance. It’s hard to enjoy the “essence” of the protagonist when not even he knows who he is. And no, mental issues or memory loss don’t justify this mess, because all of this happens after he already lost his memory, and he barely remembers anything useful anyway. ===== 2. How the side characters affect him is another huge mess. This ties into the inconsistency again. At one point, he’s yelling at March 7th and Dan Heng for not wanting to kill innocent guards, not even caring about their reasons. Then suddenly, he’s hesitant to kill Star Rail’s second coming of Hitler (Cocolia) just because Bronya—someone he barely even knows—has feelings about it. It’s ridiculous that he’s taking that big of a risk for something that doesn’t even make sense when you consider his “personality.” He’s supposed to be someone who avoids unnecessary danger (even though he constantly throws himself into it, again... inconsistent as hell). ===== 3. The whole Sparkle situation. When Sparkle first showed up, the MC went full edge-lord—choked her, punched her, etc. The punch had a decent narrative reason (he got startled, apologized, etc.). That was fine. But with Seele and Bronya? There's zero reason for him to act all soft and gentle like he does. He just lets them walk all over him, even gives up his real name to Seele—after saying he’d kill anyone who knew it. There’s no development that explains why he suddenly trusts them like that. Speaking of those two… their relationship with the MC is honestly gross. I’d 100x prefer they just stayed together and left the MC out of it. Seele turns into a psycho the moment Bronya gets mentioned, and it’s stupid considering how much more the MC has done for Seele compared to Bronya. It doesn’t feel like a healthy dynamic at all—just like in the original Star Rail, I never liked the Belobog arc because of them. They act like the world revolves around them and make bad decisions non-stop. ===== 4. The memory loss plot point is terribly executed. Yes, it exists in Honkai: Star Rail. But in Star Rail, they don’t shove the MC’s memories in your face every other chapter. They don’t keep randomly dropping people from his past or constantly referencing them either. Here, it’s just frustrating. Everything started in the early chapters, with a photo of his past with the Stellaron Hunters. Then they just showed up and erased his remaining memories. It was handled really badly, no matter the reason. ===== 5. And yeah, back to the Shadow Slave thing—some scenes are way too dragged out. A simple fight at the orphanage turned into a multi-chapter mess. Then suddenly, strong characters come out of nowhere. Clara being insanely powerful for literally no reason ruined her dynamic with Svarog—a small, innocent girl protected by a badass robot. That whole thing was just thrown away. And don’t even get me started on the MC suddenly being weak as hell during certain scenes, unable to fight off normal guards. There may be explanations, but making the MC weak just to force the plot along is lazy writing. I skipped the rest of that fight and yeah, got a bit lost, but it was totally worth it. ===== With all that said… I’ll go against myself and admit the writing itself is actually interesting. You can see the author cares. If you’ve read Shadow Slave, I bet this fanfic is actually pretty good. The real issue is the author’s character choices, especially when it comes to the harem. It feels like it’s heading in the same direction as many other fics, where toxic characters get thrown into the harem just for the sake of it. I’m honestly gonna be so done if we get to Firefly later and suddenly Seele and Bronya are still around. They’re polar opposites. On one side, you’ve got pure cuteness. On the other, the two most toxic characters in the story right now. No balance. ===== All that said—author, you’re doing a great job. Please don’t feel discouraged by this review. I didn’t write this to hate on your story or you, but just to clearly point out some issues that might be personal, yeah, but still had a big impact on my reading experience. Think of it as constructive criticism. I’m gonna keep reading because the MC’s powers are cool, and Sparkle is just amazing in this story (just like she is in the original Star Rail). I’m also super curious about what’ll happen later with Firefly, Kafka, and the rest. I just really want this Belobog arc to end already. Ever since it started, I’ve been reading while constantly irritated XD (again, probably a me issue. Seele and Bronya just trigger me hard in this fic lol) ===== Final Rating: 5/5 (I haven’t read Shadow Slave) 2/5 (My real rating, based on all the stuff I mentioned above)