Morning sunlight spilled over Teyvat.
Down below, the beings walking the earth had no idea that, just last night, their world had gone through something big enough to rewrite its fate.
Life went on as usual. Work, rest, prayer, bickering—everything followed the familiar rhythm.
Inside the Jade Chamber's domain space—
"Here, this is the ancient dragon empire's space-based defense weapon I grabbed last night. It's basically a kind of orbital railgun."
"I've already given Ningguang a copy. This set goes to the two of you."
"You can disassemble and re-combine the concepts from the Dainichi Mikoshi, the railgun, and this orbital cannon design."
"See if you can come up with something more suited to Teyvat's current state of technology."
Su Xuan handed a stack of design diagrams to Cloud Retainer.
Cloud Retainer took one look and her vision went blurry all over again.
The Dainichi Mikoshi from Celestia was already a headache to parse, and this ancient dragon empire orbital cannon looked even more like a book of heavenly script.
Su Xuan's "bonus" railgun design wasn't much better.
But it was precisely because these devices were so complex that they were worth taking apart on paper—each step of the engineering chain was loaded with new knowledge.
The most crucial, and also most exasperating, truth was:
None of these three big tech toys were actually usable in current-day Teyvat.
Especially the railgun—one shot, and the ley lines would be in complete chaos.
In the end, it wasn't a lack of tech that was holding things back; it was how fragile Teyvat itself was.
Most obvious example: the man standing in front of her.
Cloud Retainer knew full well that Teyvat's fragility put a hard cap on how much Su Xuan could really cut loose.
"Sigh… whatever the case, this immortal is truly grateful that you're willing to entrust us with such precious technical knowledge to study…"
Guizhong, who'd been staring at Su Xuan wide-eyed, heard that and turned to her with a smile dancing in her gaze.
"You're back to calling yourself 'this immortal' again? That's not what you were chirping last night when you were 'ah, ah'-ing your way through absorbing energy."
"Do crane calls normally sound like that?"
Cloud Retainer's face went crimson. She glared at Guizhong. "You dare talk about me?"
Seeing Cloud Retainer flustered made Guizhong's smile brighten even more.
Real. This felt so real. So this was what it was like to be alive again?
She replayed in her mind the three-way energy exchange from the night before.
The moment the currents linked and flared, her soul had felt like it was being branded by heat.
And when she thought back to the argument she'd had with Su Xuan before that, about "what if the girl refuses," she could only sigh at her own naïveté.
Her gaze lowered, and she silently mocked herself.
Su Xuan's "measuring rod" came with its own stamping function—once it marked you, your body would obey before your mind did. Even if you wanted to run, your legs wouldn't cooperate.
"But really, Liuyun, that was the first time I've seen you drop the façade."
"'Cloud Retainer, the Borrower of the Winds'…"
"I think 'Cloud Retainer, True Lord of Big White Rounds' might be more accurate."
Guizhong covered her mouth, laughing. Cloud Retainer actually found her footing for once and sniffed. "If you're going to start with that, this immortal will not engage."
The two women exchanged a look, then turned in unison toward Su Xuan.
Guizhong bent her knees slightly in a graceful half-curtsy and said playfully,
"Guizhong offers her thanks for being given life a second time. There truly is no way to repay you."
"So, with this body, I am willing to sign a contract with Su Xuan—"
"To willingly serve, for all eternity, as your energy-feeding container, available for your use anytime, anywhere."
Su Xuan: "?"
When women decide to be honest, they really can out-flourish any man alive.
Su Xuan laughed and pinched Guizhong's soft, pale cheek.
"Don't worry. I won't show any mercy."
"As expected of you… I do hope you'll go a little easy on me, though…" Guizhong giggled brightly.
"All right, enough joking around." Su Xuan waved a hand.
It had been two or three days since he'd returned from Inazuma. By now, Lumine should have completed the Great Sacred Sakura Cleansing, purified all the Filth Tumors, and be having tea with Yae Miko at the Grand Narukami Shrine with Shenhe and Paimon in tow.
Su Xuan planned to head back to finish his promise to Raiden Ei, and while he was there, set up a space-time conduit in Tenshukaku to link directly to the Jade Chamber.
"Guizhong, since you've just returned, you can stick with Liuyun for now."
"Take your time getting used to the modern world."
"If you run into anything you don't understand, you girls from Liyue can figure it out together. I'm heading to Inazuma."
Right now, Su Xuan had instant teleportation, Flying Raijin, and the Flying Raijin conduit array—
Plus enough raw power to shatter a planet in a single strike.
Saying goodbye to a few women and walking out the door really was no different from stepping out of the house on a quick errand.
After a few parting words, Su Xuan triggered Flying Raijin, vanished from the Jade Chamber, and reappeared a heartbeat later inside the designated room in Tenshukaku that he'd marked for space-time transport.
Once he'd set up the Tenshukaku–Jade Chamber Flying Raijin conduit, Su Xuan expanded his psychokinetic sense to blanket all of Inazuma.
Right now, Lumine had indeed finished the Great Cleansing. She, Paimon, and Shenhe were sitting in the Grand Narukami Shrine, drinking tea with Yae Miko.
Raiden Ei was seated alone on the main throne in the Tenshukaku audience hall.
As for the other girls, they'd already gone back to their posts and were hard at work for Inazuma.
Only Yoimiya was an exception. She stuck close to Kamisato Ayaka's side like glue.
Seeing the two chattering and laughing together—
Su Xuan felt that the task he'd handed Ayaka last time had probably been completed flawlessly.
"Tsk. I have to admit—Yoimiya's a mere maiden, but her capacity is on par with the Raiden Shogun herself."
"Remarkable."
He sighed inwardly, then shifted his focus and opened a fresh diary page.
[At this point, with the Flying Raijin conduit covering the shell of the world, the planet of Teyvat might as well be intangible.]
[So long as nothing from outside the world uses some stronger space-time technique on purpose, there's no way to actually touch the real Teyvat.]
[Whether it's the Abyss outside the world, meteorites, or orbital energy weapons—none of them can reach the planet.]
[All that's left are internal problems, and those are trivial.]
[Here in Inazuma, I've finished setting up a space-time conduit in Tenshukaku that links straight to the Jade Chamber, making it easy for Ei, Ningguang, Jean, and the rest of the three nations' leaders to meet.]
[As for Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma—their affairs are theirs to manage from here on.]
Raiden Ei froze.
"Su Xuan is back."
She almost stood up immediately to head for the room where the conduit was, but then remembered he was writing.
She hesitated, then sat back down.
"I'll wait until he's done recording, then go find him."
Out at sea—
On the Deathly Omen Star, still sailing back toward Snezhnaya, Rosalyne stared down, listless.
"We're still bobbing around in the ocean, and those three nations' people are already popping back and forth for joint development talks."
"The gap is brutal."
Beside her, Beidou let out a long sigh.
"Can't be helped. This whole world moves at Su Xuan's mood."
"If he's happy and casually pulls something out of his pockets, the entire global situation shifts overnight."
"Planning can't keep up with his whims at all."
"And it's not even like he's rolling any of this out for the general public."
"It's just conveniences he's giving us diary holders. The stuff hasn't even been deployed to the rest of Teyvat."
"Ugh…"
Beidou slapped her thigh.
"He could at least pop up and put a conduit in my cabin to the Jade Chamber, you know?"
"Feels like he's completely forgotten about the two of us drifting out here."
"When I see him next time, I'm not letting him go unless I drain him until he shivers," she swore silently.
[As for the remaining nations…]
[Now that Dottore and the Thunder Cannon Idiot have both returned to the ley lines, Sumeru's god-making project died in the cradle.]
[That just leaves Sumeru with the Withering Zones and Eleazar.]
[As for the matter of the Akademiya imprisoning Nahida…]
[The Akasha Terminal that the Akademiya keeps boasting about as their greatest invention of the last century—]
[Is actually Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's relic.]
[The core of the Akasha system is her Gnosis.]
[They may have locked away the Little Lucky Grass King Nahida—but the central control of the Akasha is still in her hands.]
[Nahida is the only key that can drive the Akasha.]
[Don't be fooled by how small and fluffy she looks. Through the Akasha, she can freely slip into the minds of its wearers.]
[She can even seize the bodies of those whose mental fortitude is weaker than hers—even corpses will do.]
The girls: "!?"
[Put simply, if your willpower is weaker than Nahida's and you're wearing an Akasha Terminal—]
[And if Nahida feels like it, she can intrude into your mind, shut down your consciousness, and take full control of your body.]
[She can then act in your place, doing whatever she wants under your identity.]
Sumeru, Zubair Theater—
A red-haired dancer, Nilou, covered her mouth, eyes full of shock.
The diary's content hit her like a hammer.
It was the kind of fear that comes from realizing you've just stumbled onto some horrifying truth.
"Don't tell me… the one who gave me those orders a few days ago was actually…"
Her thoughts drifted back.
A few days prior, Grand Sage Azar himself had come to the theater.
He'd called Nilou aside specifically to tell her she should devote herself fully to practicing her dancing in the coming days.
Aside from studying dance, she should try not to take part in any other arrangements that weren't directly related to it.
If she needed anything—material support, changes in her living situation, or other assistance—the Akademiya would fully back her.
And rumors were spreading among the people of Sumeru:
Grand Sage Azar was apparently investigating the situation of the desert dwellers.
The gossip out of the Akademiya claimed Azar intended to abolish the very decree he'd once signed himself—denying desert children the right to study.
Supposedly, other scholars were baffled and opposed.
"The Grand Sage I met…"
"Was that actually little Nahida possessing his body through the Akasha?"
[So even if Nahida is locked up in her cage, it doesn't hinder her grasp of Sumeru's overall situation.]
[What's odd is this—]
[She had no idea about the god-making project.]
[But then again, that's not too strange.]
[After all, the Thunder Cannon Idiot had to ascend in Sumeru to fit the original fate track.]
Across Teyvat, heads were nodding.
The fate system of the False Sky clearly had a personal bias toward that idiot.
If it wanted him to ascend in Sumeru, then of course the script had to be written so Nahida would have inexplicable blind spots, even when that violated normal logic.
Honestly, if Lumine hadn't been there—someone completely outside the control of that fate system—to intervene, that idiot might really have become Sumeru's new god.
[In the future where I never existed—]
[Nahida really would have owed everything to Lumine.]
[If not for her intervention—]
[That little feather ball would have been locked away for life.]
[And after the Thunder Cannon Idiot became a god, Nahida's fate might have been even worse.]
[Unfortunately, my sweet Lumine is too kind for her own good. In the end, she still couldn't escape being used by fate—]
[And got turned into a tool to help "redeem" him for the sake of the original Little Lucky Grass King.]
[But now that our key piece, the Thunder Cannon, has exited early, there shouldn't be any big-scale disaster coming from that direction.]
[As for Fontaine, Natlan, and Snezhnaya…]
[Fontaine's prophecy is set to break out within the next two years—a hundred percent guaranteed.]
Furina's eyes went wide.
"A prophecy we've waited five hundred years for… and it's going to happen in just the next two years?"
"No wonder the sea level's been rising. Of course it's getting worse—the prophecy is almost here."
[That said, Fontaine's prophecy isn't really a "catastrophe," not in the truest sense.]
[Strictly speaking, it's not even much of a problem.]
[Even without outside intervention, Fontaine could have resolved it on their own.]
Furina: "???"
[Honestly, I think Natlan's situation isn't that different.]
[Lumine does some impressive things there, yes.]
[But even if she never teamed up with Maveka to confront the Abyss's mimicry of the first Pyro Dragon Lord, out in the Land of Night—]
[With the power Maveka inherits from Rhonava, the former God of Death, she could still pound that thing into the ground.]
[Which just leaves the wildest country in Teyvat: Snezhnaya.]
The Tsaritsa: "…"
Arlecchino: "…"
[Everyone else is mostly dealing with domestic problems.]
[Not until Natlan do Abyss incursions really become a full-scale national and world crisis.]
[Snezhnaya's battles with the Abyss are no less intense than Natlan's, though.]
[Nordekalai only has its autonomy because it's literally the frontline where Snezhnaya's forces have been fighting the Abyss for ages. The region earned its special status by vowing eternal resistance to the Abyss.]
[As for Snezhnaya proper…]
[It's not just the Fatui Harbingers who pack a punch.]
[Their regular troops outnumber and outgun every other country.]
[And the Tsaritsa commands a personal legion—the Azure Star Legion—whose gear leaves every other army's equipment in the dust.]
[For those Abyss outbreaks in Nordekalai, they don't exactly count as a genuine "existential threat" to Snezhnaya's regular army.]
[For the Tsaritsa, the main objective has always been the False Sky.]
[Hmm…]
[But given that I've already set up a space-time conduit along the outer shell of the False Sky—]
[If she still tries to shatter it from the inside…]
[Doesn't that make me look like the clown here?]
[Forget it. If she insists on being stubborn, I'll just have Eula take over as the third White Tsar.]
The Tsaritsa: "…"
That didn't sound like a warning at all.
What did Eula becoming the third Tsar have to do with breaking the sky? Wasn't it just another thing Su Xuan could decide on a whim?
"Sigh." She rubbed her forehead. "Did Rosalyne not deliver my message properly?"
"Why does he still think I intend to punch a hole in the sky?"
[Anyway, that's about all Teyvat has on its plate for now.]
[Oh, right—there's still my adorable Lumine, and her brother's little Abyss cult.]
[But he's been awfully quiet lately. I've no idea what's going through his head.]
Lumine laughed. "After the last time, I think Aether's pretty much lost his fighting spirit."
"At this point, he barely counts as a faction at all."
[Whatever. With the strength I have now, whoever shows up makes no difference.]
[For the next few days, all I need to do is finish my promise to Ei.]
[After that, it's time to clear my head, pack my mood, and set off again—]
[To the remaining nations, to seek out the most beautiful sights this world has to offer.]
[...]
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