It was a long day of work for the Sigrud family, and little Soren was helping his father collecting the harvest for today. Tonight was a special night, an old friend of the family will be visiting them, and they had to prepare a dinner good enough for the royal alchemist. Soren didn't remember the woman's name, but he did remember the wonderful tricks she taught him long ago, the Khemia. Months has passed since the last time he saw her, and Soren was eager to show the woman how much he had improved.
While his parents were cooking, Soren was playing with a wooden spear, "practicing" to join the Black Serpent Guard with his idol "the twilight sword". Just as Soren was hitting the air with all his might, a soft calmed voice said "woow, I didn't expected to have dinner with an elite knight."
It was the woman. A tall hooded figure shrouded with a blueish black tunic.
"Rhinedottir, it's been awhile." Said Soren's mother, welcoming the alchemist in their home. There was something special in Rhinedottir, her eyes had a special glow to them, they weren't normal. The woman's eyes appear to be reflecting something she saw long ago, long before Soren was borned, 3200 nights ago.
The rest of the night the family and the woman devoured the stew, and then Rhinedottir never stopped talking about her new discoveries, slowly perturbing Soren's parents, but captivating the little boy with her new obsession of "creating life". Sadly, the alchemist had to return to the eclipse palace, not before gifting Soren a black envelope he was meant to keep a secret; a letter detailing that when the lights of the palace turned off, Soren had to go to its depths, the entrance to her laboratory was right to the Black Serpent fountain.
And thus, whem the Palace left Khaenri'ah in darkness, little Soren scaped to the palace, encountering Rhinedottir frantically turning the pages of one of the 4 books in her desk. When she turned to look at Soren, the woman's smile freezed the boy's blood. "Soren, I was waiting for you."Said Rhinedottir grabbing Soren by the shoulders. "Ever since you were born I saw something special within you, a potential that was not meant to be wasted in simple mundane farming, NO¡ Your destiny is much much bigger."
Soren tried to scape, but the alchemist lift him off the ground and tied him to one of her beds, the only one to not be occupied by a humanoid figure made of chalk. "Young disciple of the great Gold, I hope you understand the weight of your presence here. Soren, I finally perfected the Khemia that we like so much." Soren couldn't do anything but listen to the ramblings of a mad woman he onced considered a second mother. "I saw it, with my own eyes, the true stars just below us, keeping the true laws of this world... Now in my hands."
"Wh-what do you want from me?" Said Soren fearing for his life.
"The Eclipse Dinasty is too weak. HOW CAN WE FEAR THE GODS WHEN WE WERE ABLE TO SURPASS THEM WITHOUT THEIR HELP!? PATHETIC! But we can change that Soren... Aren't you excited? Sigrud Soren... Prince of the new order." Two portals appeared behind Rhinedottir, letting in this world some creatures similars to wolves, made of stone and possesing the stolen powers of the stone and the thunder. "Soren, my name is Gold! Thanks to the new life I've brought to this world I will erode the barriers of this rotted empire, of this god-ridden world. BE MY GENERAL!" The alchemist grabbed a needle adorned with various vials filled with a substance similar to a starry night, and jammed it with force on Soren's left eye. "BEHOLD THE TRUE LAWS OF THIS WORLD, THE TRUE SKY."
Soren screamed with all his essence, ripping his throat to shreds from the pain. The substance corroded his eye, sprouting from the interior and burning his skin. Gold unbound Soren, waiting for the substance to absorb all of his body.
But nothing happened.
Only the screams of a child drowning in pain and asking for death. "DAMNIT SOREN, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE." Rhinedottir kept screaming at Soren, until she left him for dead and went to let his creatures free all over Khaenri'ah. The whole kingdom will be levelled to the ground and reconstructed based on the teachings of the "true sky".
The Black Serpent Guard won't take long to start fighting back, slaying the unknown creatures. 7 days will pass until Soren woke up again, finding himself in a ruined palace, and with Rhinedottir nowhere to be found. The knights will keep the wolves away from the urban areas, but in the shadows, a group of rifthounds made their way to the heart of the city, a cocoon on top of the Palace where the alchemist left her masterpiece slumber; Durin, the shadow dragon.
The dragon was created by Rhinedottir before she found the true sky, in case Khaenri'ah needed protection; but now, caused by the corrosion of the new monsters, the dragon will turn into the doom of the kingdom, and Teyvat as a whole. Durin woke up, and with it's first wing flap, it covered Khaenri'ah in a poisonous mist, and it's roar was so mighty the stone ceiling separating Khaenri'ah from the rest of Teyvat came crumbling down upon the city, letting the rifthounds free to all over the world.
Durin was too strong, and finally the Eclipse DInasty had fallen, prey to the flames of Durin. This signified the beginning of a period of terror for Teyvat, where endless lives got thrown to oblivion, where inocents will pay for the delusions of a corrupted mind.
Soren spent the next months walking lost through the ruins of his home, searching in between the crumbling buildings and piles of bodies for his voices he kept hearing after the alchemist injected him that cursed substance drove him mad, and the hunger and thirst made the day to day a no matter how much soren wandered, no matter how much he bled, the boy couldn't die; he was cursed, cursed with inmortality by the true sky, now denominated by the Sumeru Academia as "The Abyss".
The next days will lead to the end of the Cataclysm, as citizens and guards alike were turned into horrible monsters, corrupted by the constant rifthounds attacks and added to the countless army of the true sky. All of this will culminate in the final act of this inferno, when Teyvat was witness of the sky opening apart as the gods appeared above Khaenri'ah, nest of evil. The zephyr winds dissipated the poisonous mist and ruins' debris started to float, revealing the kingdom completely. During the next hours, magma, stone and floods will be casted upon Khaenri'ah, turning the kingdom into a vortex of corrosion, machines and being trapped in this constant barrage of attacks, the only thing that kept Soren from giving up to the abyss was the sight of a distant light, a flash of a sword casting away all evil. He kept wandering, following that flash amidst the chaos.
A year passed since Gold betrayed the kingdom. and after an endless walk Soren finally recognized the ruins of his family's fields, now burned and left with a purple hue of the thunders that were casted upon the citizens. When he got closer, a strong purple light emanated from a mysterious sword, owned by a majestic woman. Soren couldn't believe it, but the woman presented herself as Raiden Makoto, electro archon, to a group of barely sentient soldiers protecting a pile of two corpses inside the broken down house.
He had one of the gods culprit of his torment right there, and Soren's blood boiled with the might of a thousand suns, grabbing a rusted glaive left by a fallen guard and charging to the god, who was as inexperienced as the young Soren in combat, and only had time to turn around to see the glaive impaling her chest, weilded by a broken boy, no longer human.
A defeaning silence surrounded Khaenri'ah, soon interrupted by a furious attack of dark red cubes, devouring Khaenri'ah and plumming it down to the abyss itself. Soren was unaware of the concepts of archons and the heavenly principles, and was unaware of the cost of his act of anger. The holder of said principles appeared, terrifying the archons themselves.
The Cataclysm ended with countless lives; the Black Serpent Guards now mindless sets of armor, and his captain nowhere to be found. An abrupt ending to the darkest age in Teyvat's modern history, with Khaenri'ah and his people submerged in the abyss that corrupted Rhinedottir so long ago. To cast more shame into the Khaenri'ahns, Celestia cursed the few survivors with the same damning inmortality that filled Soren with anguish, the young Khaenri'ahn that was grafted with the True Sky and slayed the thunder itself.
When Soren woke up again after being imprisoned, and he did what his mind and body remembered the most, and wandered. He wandered all acroos Teyvat, only joined by his rusty Glaive in a search to kill the alchemist and the rest of Celestia as a whole. For 500 years he explored every cave, every corner of Teyvat in his search, and was witness of countless sites and events.
He visited the ruins of the Old city of Mondstad, where he found the tattered cape of an old Master Of The Knights Of Favonius, which he used to cover the black serpent armor that he used as clothing, partially merged into his skin after so long. He visited the chasm he once called home, visiting the famous fountain of the palace, soothing his wound with it's waters and taming Gunnar; first of the Rifthounds. In Fontaine he learned the joy of the modern world and how Khaenri'ah was being forgotten by name slowly.
From Mare Jivari to Sumeru's desert, and in this nation it's where his wandering ended. In the middle of the desert he found ancient ruins dedicated to an ancient deity. where he found traces of Rhinedottir and his new chalk apprentice; and using the mummified body found in the depths of the ruins, his rusty glaive, and abyssal Khemia he had learned from the voices, he created a colossal sword of corrosive nature, held in the maw of his partner Gunnar. What Soren didn't knew is that he had used the body of one of the first Archon, Naberius, perished in the Cataclysm. Once in the enormous academy word of mouth arrived to him, about an archon and his loyal followers opposed to Celestia, just like him. That's how he tracked an extravagant figure known as Pierro.
Pierro talked to Soren about the Fatui harbingers, about the Tsaritsa and her cause of ending with Celestia and it's rotten heavenly principles, to burn away this old corrupted world. And thus, Soren joined Pierro, Dottore and Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter, the 4 Fatui Harbingers.
As the Harbingers grew in number he was eventually known as Innamorati, the reaping hand of the Tsaritsa. The second natural being with absolute knowledge of the Khemia and the True Sky. Someone that with the investing of the Snezhnayan archon and a charming fellow harbinger was able to perfect his Khemia to a point of manipulating the stone as good as a vision bearer. It is said that a real Geo vision was given to the harbinger after the remorse of a wise god. Soon after that Soren was gifted a Dendro delusion as well, given by the Tsaritsa as a conmemoration of the land the Harbingers were formally founded and the dream of Soren, of one day in his eternal life growing an orchard were Khaenri'ah once stood.