After crying her heart out, Furina finally pulled herself out of Rukkhadevata's embrace.
Her cheeks were still flushed red, and she couldn't quite meet anyone's eyes.
She was over five hundred years old, yet she had just bawled like a child.
Even she felt embarrassed.
"May I ask who you are…?"
Furina looked at Rukkhadevata. With a presence and bearing like that, this clearly wasn't an ordinary person.
And since Furina herself was not one of the original Seven, she naturally had never met her before.
"My name is Rukkhadevata.
If that doesn't ring a bell, then you should at least know the title 'Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, the first Dendro Archon,' yes?"
Rukkhadevata smiled faintly and gently patted the jellyfish-like bob of Furina's hair.
"Of course I know! The God of Wisdom of Sumeru."
Furina stared at her in shock. Even the "her" in the mirror had admired this senior.
"Your plan really is quite insane, you know."
Rukkhadevata's smile carried a trace of amusement.
Using the accumulated retributive energy of Fontaine to shatter the Hydro Archon's throne, restoring the full authority of the Water Dragon King—
that was the sort of thing Celestia would never allow.
"You… know about that?"
Furina spoke with some embarrassment.
"If it were another god, indeed they might never notice your plan.
But I am a demon god born from the World Tree itself.
Most things that happen in Teyvat can be observed from within it."
Rukkhadevata smiled as she spoke.
"Unless you possessed a power or an authority that transcended this world entirely."
Furina's lips twitched.
The World Tree really was cheating—practically an encyclopedia of all Teyvat. You could look up anything in there.
For all she knew, it might even record how many times she had eaten dessert.
"The number of desserts you've eaten: 182,182 times, correct?"
Rukkhadevata added playfully, quoting the number of days Furina had played the role of god—eating one dessert per day as her daily reward.
The sugar in those sweets helped her body release dopamine, letting her briefly forget the numbness and pain.
Koji still remembered: when Lumine first met Furina, it should have been around the 182,376th dessert.
"Y-You can read my thoughts?"
Furina jumped, looking at Rukkhadevata with great wariness.
This kind of ability was far too outrageous.
If the other party knew those shameful little secrets of hers, she would die of embarrassment on the spot.
Like those times she got bullied by hilichurls…
Or when she was bullied by Pongpong Beasts…
"This is one of my authorities. Don't worry, I won't keep reading your mind.
Also, when you were getting pushed around by that Pongpong Beast, you were very cute~"
Rukkhadevata looked at Furina, eyes full of laughter.
"Uuuuh—!"
Furina's face exploded red in an instant.
So she had seen it!
But why say it out loud in front of everyone?!
Did Furina not deserve any dignity?
Neuvillette's expression turned rather strange.
He, too, remembered a day when Furina came back and suddenly proposed revising certain laws—
for example, a clause forbidding Pongpong Beasts from approaching the Court of Fontaine.
To actually be bullied by such creatures…
It really drove home how weak Lady Furina's combat power was.
He couldn't understand it.
Even if she was just a personality split off from the Hydro Archon, she should have at least some strength, shouldn't she?
"Pfft."
Paimon couldn't help but laugh aloud. She hadn't expected the Hydro Archon to be so entertaining.
"What's so funny?
Paimon, your current combat power isn't even one-fifth of a wild boar's."
Koji teased casually.
Paimon's smile froze on her face and slowly slid away.
"Why would you bring that up…"
She looked at Koji with wounded eyes. Could he not give her even a little face?
"In Yae Miko's tone, it would probably go something like this:
'Furina, ah… getting bullied by Pongpong Beasts out in the wild, heart collapsing from anger, crying and throwing a tantrum—oh, how pitiful~'"
Lumine said in a perfectly smug "fox priestess" voice.
Koji could practically see the pink-haired kitsune's ears twitching in his mind.
"You—!"
Furina's face was scarlet all the way to the tips of her ears.
Her dignity was being kneaded and stretched by these people, and she could do nothing about it.
All she could do was clench her fists and glare at Lumine with a mix of shame and fury.
If she actually had enough power, she would already have transformed into her barbed-backed dragon form and gone all-out against Lumine.
Arlecchino, meanwhile, was looking at Greater Lord Rukkhadevata with a certain wariness.
That kind of ability was truly troublesome.
Didn't that mean that everything the Fatui had done over the years could be dug up by her at any time?
Then again, so what even if she knew?
The World Tree was such a special existence that not just anyone could come into contact with it.
"Senior, does Celestia know about all this?"
Furina took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
"They do. They just don't care."
Rukkhadevata nodded.
Where had the Hydro Archon gotten the confidence that she could hide anything from the Four Governing Authorities?
The only reason they hadn't intervened was that they simply didn't care about the fate of the people of Fontaine.
Life, death, and time—
each of the Four Authorities' powers stands above Teyvat itself.
Even the Pyro Archon, by borrowing the authority of the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, could blast open the false sky and glimpse the world beyond.
"The people of Fontaine are not truly humans.
They are bodies molded from Primordial Sea water into humanoid form, using the pure water spirits as raw material."
Rukkhadevata went on.
Furina's pupils contracted slightly.
Fontaine's people… weren't real humans?
"So that's why the people of Fontaine dissolve when they come into contact with the Primordial Sea."
Neuvillette understood a little more.
If their bodies were sculpted by the Primordial Sea, then of course contact with that same water would dissolve them.
Those who vanished weren't dead.
They had merely reverted back into pure water spirits.
"Exactly.
The mess left behind by the first Hydro Archon—Egeria—was entrusted to Furina to bear.
Then she split off your personality, while her divinity took charge of executing the plan."
Koji explained.
"I see…"
Furina's expression grew complicated.
So that was the truth.
Even Arlecchino had not imagined that the people of Fontaine were not humans in the normal sense.
⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯
"Remaking pure water spirits with Primordial Sea water into 'humans'… that was a taboo act."
Rukkhadevata nodded. "Which is why Celestia passed judgment."
"So, what exactly is the plan?"
Neuvillette still couldn't picture what kind of plan Furina would carry out.
She had endured and hidden herself for over five hundred years.
Anyone could tell the Hydro Archon was saving up for something big.
"You'll know when you see her."
Koji shrugged.
The Hydro Archon's plan was nothing but a gamble.
The odds of failure were painfully high.
In the end, Neuvillette was still the Water Dragon King. He did not love mortals the way the archons did.
So on the day the prophecy came to pass, it was entirely possible he would simply stand aside and watch.
"The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale—
that is where Furina's divine persona, Focalors, is right now."
Arlecchino couldn't help but sigh.
"Our Lady Hydro Archon certainly picked a clever hiding place. In there, no one would ever suspect a thing."
(She had spent plenty of time observing the machine herself.)
Neuvillette nodded.
He had already guessed that of all the places in Fontaine, the most likely hiding spot for Focalors was inside the Oratrice.
"She's been hiding there?"
Furina's jaw dropped.
She had never imagined that Focalors would be concealed inside the Oratrice where nearly every trial took place.
She'd attended so many of those trials herself and had never once noticed a thing.
"Furina, are you going or not?"
Lumine looked over at her, eager to compare the divine persona and the mortal personality in person.
"Of course I'm going."
Furina nodded firmly.
It had been a long time since she'd spoken to the "her" in the mirror.
This was the perfect chance to clear everything up face to face.
(End of Chapter)
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