At night, he was Dust. But at day, he was Zhongli who battled an enemy almost as worse as the Fatui, paperwork.
The main reason today's paperwork was so suffering because of the adrenaline rush he experienced as Dust. It had been a while he had held arms like that.
And despite the amount, Zhongli quickly completed the paperwork. Normally, he would take his sweet time, but with the information he got, he need time to think about his next move.
Cloud Retainer. Xiao. Mountain Shaper. Moon Carver. Even Streetward Rambler is elusive of him. Ganyu, he can feel. But her life force was faint and he cannot get a proper lock on her.
He can only feel disgusted towards his own incompetence to not even look after his adepti and nation. He swore to make things right.
"Are you alright, old man?" The voice of his director broke him out of his thoughts. In the past few months, Hu Tao had become more mellowed than he was used to. He missed her cheery personality, but the deaths and the sheer number of clients the funeral parlour was getting took a toll on her.
"It is nothing, Master Hu. I was merely thinking of what else to do since I had finished all my work." She sceptically looks at him for a few moments and then at the pile of paper sitting on his desk. Taking one, she goes over it and then puts it back.
"Well, since your work is done, you can go home?" Go home? Somehow, that did not feel as right as he liked it to be. But he can use the time.
"Then I will be at home. Should you need me, you can call me anytime." Hu Tao nods and he takes himself out of the building and into the sunny streets.
His eyes roamed to the Jade Palace floating in the sky. Right now, meeting with Ganyu was an essential part in figuring out what was wrong with his Adepti. They were imprisoned, but he doubts the Fatui could do it without Harbingers. Which means something more was going on.
He felt restless, but he also knows now was not the time. What he can do is prepare for the night.
Going into his home, he sits on the floor and spreads out the Fatui weaponry which he acquired and Tassel spears and the Prototype series weapons.
As the Prime Adepti, Zhongli had minor control over other elements and these Fatui elemental weapons can help enhance them to some degree.
But would they be enough?
From what he knows, the positions near the Adepti abodes are heavily fortified and going against a force of that size would be problematic, as Dust who is but a mere mortal.
Three days.
From the intel he took from Liu, the harbour has only three days until the big assault from the Fatui under the disguise of trade ships.
The imprisoned adepti. The stealth attack. The spies amongst the people of Liyue.
And on top of these, there was the issue of the blocked trade routes with the other nations which in itself was a weird thing.
For now, the adepti and the harbour are his top priority.
Taking a meditative pose, Zhongli began concentrating on the small link he could maintain with adepti.
It was like the thinnest of thread, a far cry from what it was before. Gently supplying his geo energy to it, he began activating the link and just as thinks looked like they were going to be a success, he felt it.
A dark and haunting feeling. And then the small thread of a connection was lost. No, it was cut off.
It was a whisper, but he heard it. Cloud Retainer's voice.
Don't.
The situation was more dire than he expected. Panic laced his heart. His adepti, they are suffering.
Before he even thinks of storming the strongholds, he needs to takes measure against the corruption of the abyss in them.
But how? The abyss has no antidote. It was not even a disease, but all corrupting nonetheless.
Despair began creeping into him and his breathing became ragged. His vision became hazy and soon, he found himself on the floor on his stomach.
His eyes swept over to the last memento a dead friend left him. The catalyst of Guizhong. As if a calming touch, the sight of the object caused his raging thoughts and running heart to slow down and after a few minutes, he found himself.
Really, how pathetic has he become over the years.
The abyss. The all-and-ever-corrupting anti-thesis of Celestia. What can he do against it? The fact that only Cloud Retainer's bond was presented to him meant that his other adepti are in no shape of communicating with him.
An antidote? No. He may have natural resistance against the Abyss for reason unknown, but all these years he had never heard a murmur of a cure to abyssal corruption.
Hope would be there if there was a way to transfer his resistance to others.
... Maybe hope was there and he just now realised it.
His geo energy was more potent than anything else in the known world, perhaps surpassed only by Celestia and the light of the twins. And it has an even more impressive neutralising property towards other elements and the supernatural. Combined with his natural resistance to the corruption, the energy of the abyss was not so much harmful to him like it is to other divine beings.
So, what if this resistance can be catalysed to other beings? Or more along the lines of 'purify' the corruption?
First and foremost, the trade routes and from there he can conduct his experiments.
With a clear destination in his mind, Zhongli adorns the persona of Dust once again and disappears with sparks of golden energy.
...
The Sun was almost at its peak illuminating the green plains of Liyue and showing a Fatui Stronghold of substantial size.
The guards stationed there were patrolling around the base at their leisurely pace because they understood that no sane person will attack a heavily armed base at the broad of daylight.
But the guards at the front gate suddenly became alert as a man wearing a white overcoat was walking up to them. The entire base became in high alert.
They saw how the man conjured up a pyro rifle which glowed with an intense red colour and fired at them.
"Enemy!" The entire base becomes active at once.
The masked man takes out a cryo sword and launches himself into the incoming troops.
Jumping over the shoulders of a Vanguard, the man slashed at his back with a cryo blade and twisting mid-air to fire his pyro rifle at some Pyroslinger Bracers who were aiming at him but found themselves screaming in pain as bullets slammed against their heads. Using the momentum of the gun to kick an incoming Anemo Boxer's head to the ground and using the downed body as a flail to take down another Anemo user coming at him.
Arching his back to the right, the masked man just dodges a blob of water which soars past him and hits a Vanguard coming to attack him causing a conductive chain reaction on the poor man who began convulsing.
Before anyone can act further, a mirror maiden appears out of a blue portal and motions the others to stop.
"You seem particularly skilled. Why not join for the cause of Sneznaya?"
The audacity of this human to make him of all beings an offer to abandon his land.
"My life is for the people of Liyue. Your life for me for you had sullied these lands." Dust blurred and he was upon the Mirror Maiden in an instant with his cryo blade drawn out. The woman opened a portal behind him to get away, but it was already too late as the sword beheaded her in an instant. But no blood came out as the blade had already frozen the blood vessels in the neck.
Some of the troops hesitated at the show of carnage in front of them, but their patriotism won over their fear and they too joined the fray with other elite Fatui soldiers who had joined the battle not long ago.
There was no hesitation in Dust's sword anymore. Every slash he made was precise and strong. He took the battlefield and carnage as he had lived in it his whole life. He did.
"M-Mercy." A Geo Bracer begged as he found himself pushed into the ground and for a moment, a vision from another time came to Dust. Of a human in a similar position to the Fatui.
"Monster."
Dust's cryo blade pierce the heart of the Fatui.
"You harmed my people. There is no mercy." His whisper echoes in the suddenly silent battlefield. The Cryo blade and the Pyro gun disappears in golden particles and next appeared a Vanguard hammer. Turning towards the other soldiers and the many more that were coming, he raises the hammer saturating it with Geo completely overwhelming its innate Electro element.
"From dust is where you came." Small cracks began to appear on the hammer and the ground beneath Dust cracked by the presence of the overwhelming power he had pumped within it.
Geo was a fascinating element. Very different from the other six. Anemo sliced and shredded. Electro surged and penetrate. Hydro devoured and weathered. Cryo chilled and stole. Dendro poisoned and rotted. Pyro burned and overwhelmed. Each had a different way of balancing their destructiveness with the way they bring life. But Geo? Its destructiveness and capability of creation are one and the same.
It neutralizes.
"To dust you shall return."
Dust swung the hammer and smashed in into the ground causing the very ground to shake and titanic spikes of earth reaching the size of Guyun stone forest emerge from the ground and annihilate everything in front of him. Throughout the world various being felt the pulse of geo energy wreck through the grounds of Tevyat.
The people of Liyue felt that their lord stood amongst them once again raising their hopes and vigour. The adepti momentarily found themselves free from whatever had ailed them. Those who knew the geo archon simply looked at the horizon and merely thought of how the oldest of them was taking arms once again. And those who had thought of his demise merely frowned and contemplated.
The gigantic earth spikes began turning to geo crystals and ceased altogether by becoming dust and so did the people who were trapped in it. Dust's hammer also turned to dust as it could not hold itself anymore after enduring the unreal weight of the geo energy in it. And Dust? He kneeled to the ground and prayed for the soldiers he had to kill.
"Let the land be your resting place, let your ashes feed the fertile soil. Remembered by the earth below, your valour shall sing in the wisps of anemo. Rest the burdens you carry and may your souls be guided to Celestia." It was for a moment, but wisps of light appeared from the ground and disappeared in the sunlight. Kneeling for a few more minutes, Dust got up and began walking out of the area.
His senses tell him that the Millineth are on their way hearing the commotion. This position was a strategic place in the trade routes. Liyue can handle it from here. He has to find a way to free his adepti.
…
Darkness. No. Light that appeared as darkness. So many spectrums of colours yet to be discovered that cannot help but be interpreted as nothing but white.
She had no body. No ears to hear. No eyes to see. Her senses had long since ceased to be. Floating in this vast space of, well, space. Devoid, yet to be touched by the blemishes of human comprehension.
And in that sea of yet-comprehension, a golden thread touches her. A familiar warmth drives away the haze filling her mind and the yet to be tainted space of discovery around her ripples and a golden light begins invading.
The white may be her ultimate goal of curiosity, but the golden was something her very being yearned for. It begins to remake the pieces of her mind scatted across this white canvas, but she can see and feel the white closing in on the golden. She does not know whether the gold can endure the white, but something in her was unwilling to even bear the thought of it being hurt.
And as enough clarity returned to her, a sense of dread rips through her mind and soul.
No.
The gold must not be touched by the white.
Her lord cannot be tainted by such plight. And so, a new colour invades the soon-to-be warzone between gold and white. A blazing green pushes the white and covers the gold within it until it is extinguished.
Don't.
She speaks a voiceless word and the gold relents and retreats. The green blazes mightily with a renewed vigour. The presence of her lord had brought her together and out of the influence of the white. She will not lose this chance.
The green slowly, but surely begins to fight against the infinite white.
And then another ripple of golden invades the space driving the white away and empowering the green.
Her lord, he was fighting, too.
About time.
And as the ripple of golden sears through reality, five others colours invade the white. However, their presence was meek and weakened. But gradually got stronger with the passage of time. The bright yellow, teal green, sky blue, a dull scarlet and a piercing silver. All of them rebelled against the white.
The white, only increased the intensity of its onslaught.
But the six colours relented not.
The golden lord was calling for them.
They needed to get free for their lord will be waiting for them in the battlefield.