Sorry about the long wait between chapters. Whispers in the Walls came out recently, and, well, I HAD to play that before writing this chapter. To clarify, this story has fermented in my head since very shortly after I started playing Genshin about two years ago, and the most recent Warframe update had been The New War. By the time Angels of the Zariman came out, I pretty much had the ending in mind…

...then Duviri came out. And holy moly, were my various speculations right, lol. I had the idea of the twins dreaming up Teyvat in the void during the Second Dream before such a concept ever showed up in game. I'm a total genius, right?

Kidding, of course.

But THIS chapter…well, it will deal with some things that Whispers in the Walls would very closely touch on, so I knew it had to wait until I played it. Fortunately, I don't have to make too many alterations. It fits in the overall storyline I've got here pretty well, though some details will have to change here and there to accommodate the new information we've received.

Speaking of the update, what a wild ride. New tileset is jaw-dropping. New music is hair-raising. New syndicate, despite being the LEAST human, is somehow the most alive and relatable. New story is—

Oh boy, where would I even start? It's fantastic, it really is, but I'm still processing that ending. It could go one of two ways, and I desperately hope it goes one and not the other. I won't spoil things by discussing it here, though this chapter will pull from information we got from this quest, so be forewarned if you haven't played it yet.

Now, if both I and the voices in the damn walls would shut up, we can begin. On with the show:

West Road outside Liyue Harbor

Xiao peeled himself off the ground with a shake of his head. His body still felt shaky and unresponsive, but somehow he was still alive. He shouldn't have been. He knew exactly what power had washed over the city, and even an Adeptus like himself could only hold out against it for so long before succumbing.

Osial was dead. Not sealed, not trapped, not banished—dead. Annihilated. Not even Rex Lapis had managed that, though possibly he avoided doing so for exactly the reason the entire city just experienced. There are consequences to killing divine beings, something Xiao knew all too well.

But whoever this Descender was had killed Osial outright. Xiao had witnessed the entire thing from the road to Liyue Harbor. He had seen the sky tear open to a realm of madness, and he very nearly completely lost control of his karma in that moment.

It was all too familiar—the insanity, the corruption, the feeling of losing oneself to infinite nothingness—it was far too much like the Abyssal horrors he fought against in the Chasm and other places when the Cataclysm broke out, and Khaen'ria called upon forbidden forces beyond the plane of known reality.

Only by the greatest effort of will was he able to calm himself and rein in his karmic curse before he caused another disaster. If that portal had stayed open much longer, he may have lost himself to it. Where in all the hells did this other Descender come from? The Abyss itself? He would need to be on his guard at all times.

What followed was no less staggering. Xiao saw the vast metal ship fly in and destroy Osial in a single strike from whatever catastrophically powerful weapon it had. It should have been impossible. Even his lord Rex Lapis was forced to battle with all his might to merely contain Osial, and this descender killed him in one shot.

The elemental burst that followed should have turned the entire population of the city, himself included, into puddles. Yet he was still here, standing, albeit shakily, alive and mostly well. He had felt that too—the foreign healing power that washed through him and instantly restored his failing flesh. It was...outer, alien, and it too reminded him all too much of the power of the Abyss. Nevertheless, it saved his life and, judging from the glimpse down the road onto the thoroughfare, the lives of the citizens of Liyue Harbor.

Xiao peered out over the harbor. The ship was still there, stationary, hovering above the city, its engines at a dull thrum rather than the earth-shaking howl they were at when it first arrived. He considered what to do; initially, confronting the Descender directly seemed like the right move, as intentionally or not, they were a threat to Liyue. He rescinded that idea after a second thought. His lord had warned him against showing immediate hostility, and now that he had seen what they were capable of, discretion seemed the better part of valor. No need to antagonize the god-killing monster that currently wasn't doing anything harmful to the people.

Speaking of the people, his second idea was to check on the citizens. He was still standing, sure, but mortals might be far worse off after absorbing that amount of raw elemental energy, alien healing power or not. But he reconsidered that idea too. There was good reason for him to avoid mortals; his karmic curse was dangerous to them, capable of corrupting the very soul. He also had to admit that he wouldn't be a particularly comforting or encouraging presence to someone suffering pain, either.

But there was one in Liyue Harbor who he could ask what happened, one who could, at least for a while, resist the corrupting influence of his karmic debt. He had avoided her for the same reason he had avoided the others—he did not want them to bear the consequences of his burden, and he didn't see himself, a monster that kills monsters, as someone worthy of their company. But maybe she would be willing for a short time at least to converse with him and give him some answers, if she had any.

Ganyu. She would probably be in the Jade Chamber, near the Tianquan at a time of crisis like this. In a wisp of dark smoke, Xiao disappeared from view.

Onboard the Railjack

The Tenno finished bolting on the last access panel to the last damp electrical component. "Mop and bucket", right...by Vay Hek's oversized noggin, where was he supposed to find a mop and bucket? Not exactly standard equipment on a railjack, now was it, Cy? He had to quietly and invisibly hop down into the harbor and grab a ripped chunk of tarp and bring it back to the railjack to soak up as much of the water as he could, and ended up using some rigged hoses and compressed air to dry out some of the more sensitive junctions and fuses.

He also felt pressured to hurry since, one: he was concerned about what Ningguang had told him about the place called the Chasm. It sounded far too much like either a Murmur or Void Angel incursion. Possibly both. And two...well, he kind of just wanted away from the city. Guilt ate at him, deserved or not, as his actions indirectly nearly wiped out everyone there, and he simply didn't feel like talking about it to them. He didn't like avoiding responsibility either, but he genuinely needed to head toward the Chasm as soon as possible. Once whatever dilemma over there was resolved, he'd come back to get answers from Ningguang...and probably apologize for the danger he put everyone in.

You shouldn't be getting attached, you know. Have you forgotten what you are here to do? And what will happen when you do it?

He resisted the urge to put his hands over his ears. It wouldn't be so bad if he could distinguish between his own inner thoughts and...the other voice. They were beginning to sound so much alike now.

But that was a later problem. Now, the railjack was functional again, and he had somewhere he needed to be.

"Hydraulic contamination: mitigated. Good work. Don't forget to do your stretches after so much mopping. We wouldn't want a back injury, now would we?" Cy quipped sardonically.

The Tenno growled in annoyance. "Sure, sure. They'll have to wait, though. We have a threat to address. You have the Teyvat surface scan data, right?"

"Indeed I do."

"Does anything on the topographical map look like something people would call "The Chasm"?

"An apt, if unimaginative name for a giant hole in the ground. Said hole is to the West of our current position. Flight time: measured in seconds at full burn. Waypoint placed."

"Good. Let's get going. We have some violence to commit." And by the Void, he would take out his growing feeling of frustration on those Abyssal vermin who would throw their lot in with the Murmur.

"Outstanding. Well then, hotshot, may your blade never fail to find the necks of your enemies. If they have necks. Engines spun up. Punch it when ready."

With a grit of his teeth, the Tenno fired the thrusters so hard that Guyun Stone Forest suffered a dust storm, and the railjack launched out over Mt. Tianheng and disappeared from view in the blink of an eye.

Unknown Location

A nondescript table sat on a nondescript floor in a room so dark that one couldn't tell if the walls and ceiling were indeed also nondescript, or even there at all. There were no chairs at the table, and the table itself was bereft of any placements, save two:

On one side, an old phonograph.

On the other, a strange looking plush animal with a decidedly evil-looking mask.

Silence weighed heavily on the room, feeling as if any attempt to speak and break the silence would be crushed under its weight. For a long time nothing moved, not a whisper of sound was made, and the passing of time itself grew indeterminate.

Until the needle of the phonograph, of its own accord, moved onto the vinyl of the record, and the player began to spin. The tinny scratching of sound, as quiet as it was, seemed to shatter the heavy quiet with a disproportionate violence.

"Yes yes, I'm here. Now will you tell me exactly why you, of all people, want to talk to me?"

The feminine voice came from the speaker of the phonograph, raspy and fuzzy as one would expect from such a seemingly old vinyl record. At the sound of the voice, the strange animal doll across the table began to twitch as if possessed before lifting its head as if to look through the wicked mask at the phonograph.

"Greetings, 'A'. It has been some time, has it not?"

A smooth voice came from the odd plush toy, calm and ostensibly polite, yet in its tones one could hear a rancid sarcasm and bitterness underneath the veneer of courtesy.

"...why is it that every time I hear you talk I feel like a hydro slime is crawling across my skin?" the phonograph replied witheringly.

"And every time I hear you talk, it is as if hornets are attempting to nest in my ears." The animal toy didn't even pretend to be polite. "Yet I endure for the sake of knowledge. Are you not capable of the same?"

"...what do you want, 'Doctor'?"

The same thing you want, of course! Answers."

"I have no answers for you, Harbinger."

"Oh I know, you haven't had answers for a very long time. But wouldn't you know, I have answers for you!"

"...and you would share them? Why?"

"I know you and your hexenzirkel have been testing the boundary of Teyvat, pushing and prodding against the veil to discover the truth of this world. I know you are aware of Celestia's sudden silence. I also know that you attempted to gain access to Celestia to find out why, but found your way barred."

"Get to the point, Harbinger. If you are about to tell me how the sky is fake, don't waste even your worthless breath. I already know."

"Yes yes yes, but would you like to know why?"

The phonograph did not answer, the only sound coming from it being the light scratching of the needle on vinyl.

"I'll take that as a yes." The animal toy seemed quite pleased with itself.

"You seem awfully happy for someone who just had to destroy all his clones. Buer got one over on you, huh?"

"...they weren't clones. That was a lie. And though I did destroy the ones I knew of, there are infinitely more where they came from. Not even Buer knows what they truly are."

The plushie pantomimed waving its hand aside as if to dismiss the topic.

"But enough about them. I have two very intriguing answers for you, which I am sharing out of my own self-interest, of course. Let's start with the results of my Samsara experiment, which you no doubt heard of."

"Just the sort of thing you'd come up with, dredging people's dreams for data,"the phonograph retorted in disgust.

"Do I hear moralizing from someone who left her daughter behind to blow up lakes and landscapes unsupervised, while she went gallivanting off on adventures?"

"...she is being taken care of."

"Of course, of course, my mistake," the plushie mocked sardonically. "Anyway, the experiment."

"Oh, do tell," the phonograph bitterly grunted.

"Indeed I shall. We'll get right to the conclusion. The truth of this world. We, and the entire world of Teyvat, gods and all…"

The plushie paused as if for dramatic effect.

"...are someone else's dream."

The needle on the phonograph popped right off the vinyl with a piercing scratch."

I'll continue while you take a moment to recover," the plush toy jeered. "That said, I believe this dream has become self-sustaining, and perhaps is now its own independent existence. Data is hard to come by on this, but I have my suspicions. The fact that I can even postulate this is in evidence of this conclusion."The needle found its way back onto the record, and resumed playing.

"...so who's the dreamer?" The phonograph's voice was low and quiet.

"You've already guessed that, have you not? I'd hate to have overestimated your intelligence."

"...the Descenders."

"Ah, what a relief! I have not been off in my estimations!"

"Enough. What is the second answer, and why would a devil like you be so free with information?"

"It is well that you should ask that, for the two things are related. Why would I tell you this? Well, for one, I'd advise caution on your expeditions to the boundary. Should you succeed in piercing it—"

For a moment the plushie paused, and for the first time in the conversation sounded genuine.

"—what lies on the other side threatens us all."

"'What lies on the other side'? What are you talking about?"

"Patience, 'A', we'll arrive at that momentarily. As you no doubt are aware, my research has always been aimed toward the elevation of mankind, to overtake the gods themselves. An apotheosis, as it were. Naturally, such lines of thought lead to… a particular place."

"Why am I not surprised that you've been poking around the Abyss?"

"Ah, but having the benefit of hindsight is invaluable here. I have not made the same mistakes as Khaen'ria. And with the heavens silenced, there are none to stop me."

"The Abyss is accursed. Corruption."

"It is a gateway, 'A'. To a realm beyond mortal comprehension. It is why you must not pierce the veil unwittingly. And it is why I am here to tell you of a deal offer."

"Why in the name of all the Seven would I accept any deal from you?"

"Oh, the deal isn't from me."

The stuffed toy, despite its mouth being nothing more than a stitched line, grinned a wide, cruel grin.

"It's from Him."

Above the Chasm, Liyue

A burst of rapid, high-caliber fire stitched two lines across the road leading out of the Chasm to the East, shredding through a crawling army on the march. All forms of hilichurls, their flesh threaded and coated with a metallic-looking corruption; Abyss mages, their beady eyes gleaming with otherworldly power; former miners from the Chasm, their flesh also showing the same fractal liquid metal corruption, their eyes empty as the void; Riftwolves, spectral monsters of tooth and claw, skeletal and nearly immaterial; and lastly, the Murmur—limbs, limbs of all shapes and sizes, blasphemous imitations of the human form, crawling, grasping, clambering across the terrain, their "flesh" nothing but crystalline void taken form; the vanguard of this terrifying army was reduced to splatters when the Tenno opened up on them from the railjack's ventral turret.

The rest of the shambling Abyssal/Void force that had breached the surface was quickly dispatched by the Tenno firing a Shatter Burst charge and detonating it in an airburst over the yawning opening of the Chasm. Bodies turned into mist and chunks, all but disintegrated by an explosive weapon meant to rip apart armored spacecraft.

Across the gateway to the Chasm along the East road that led back to the harbor stood a small and completely terrified group of Millelith. Despite their terror, they had held the road against the eldritch horrors that had trickled out of the depths, at great cost to their own number. Dozens of them had died trying to take down a SINGLE one of the hideous aberrations; an arm, or a cruel mockery of an arm that did not bleed and moved of its own accord.

"While the Millelith stands guard, evil shall never prevail," they chanted among themselves, but their courage was stretched to the breaking point. So it was with as much relief as it was shock that they witnessed the Tenno's railjack annihilate the army of darkness and madness with absurd firepower from above.

The Tenno brought the railjack to a halt above the entrance to the Chasm, and with a deliberate and menacing stride, walked back to the exit hatch and dropped to the ground.

His Rhino Prime, Palatine variant, landed like a meteor, rippling the ground like liquid and scattering the corpses, or the shreds of the corpses, around him like leaves in the wind. In a slow and purposeful motion, he cocked back the charging slide of his Tenet Arca Plasmor, which whined eagerly with power. He had no intention of leaving even bodies behind. Hell had come to the Chasm, but the void devil was here to drive it out.

He turned back to see the stunned Millelith soldiers, weapons dangling loosely from their frozen hands, fear written on their faces as they had no way of knowing if the Tenno was friend or foe. In consideration of their bravery in facing things no human should ever have to face, he turned towards them and gave a quick but immaculate bow. He then held up his hand, palm outward, motioning them to stay and not follow him.

The leader managed to regain his senses long enough to nod in return, and that was good enough for the Tenno. He turned back to see another squad of monsters, hundreds of them, pouring up out of one of the ramps that led down into the depths. They lumbered down the path towards him, fearless in their insanity, single-minded in their corruption, drawing closer in a mad rush like one big pile of contaminated flesh and crystallized void. The Tenno raised his Arca Plasmor and aimed.

*KC-CHOW*

A wave of brilliantly bright energy wider than a hallway carved an unstopping path through a giant swath of the approaching horde. The enemies did not merely die—they were obliterated. What once was a tightly packed group of monsters was now ash and vapor.

Yet even this did not stop the horde. More of them washed up like a flood onto the ground level, swarming around the Tenno. He fired several more times, each shot eradicating dozens of them at once, yet they did not slow.

Well, now his blood was up. Feeling the rush of battle flowing to his head as it did so often, he filled Rhino's lungs with air, reared his head back, and ROARED. Undeterred, the vile eldritch army still closed upon him, limbs, makeshift weapons, and foul Abyssal spells seeking his head. Rhino Prime clamped his hands into fists, brought his legs out into a wide stance, and clenched. His skin became as iron, and with little to no concern, he stood there as all the attacks of the enemy struck his body—to no effect whatsoever. All the blows, shots, and magical blasts failed to illicit even a single flinch. The Tenno grinned inside his warframe.

My turn.

He raised his foot and stomped.

The world seemed to shatter into pieces for a moment. The weaker enemies in a massive radius simply exploded from the sheer force of the stomp as the ground around them fractured like glass. The stronger enemies tumbled into the air like ragdolls...and froze in place, as if time itself had stopped for them.

Then the Tenno drew out another weapon—a massive hammer, gilded and golden, far more ornate than one would expect of a weapon of war. Fragor Prime. But any doubts as to its effectiveness were immediately dispelled when Rhino leapt dozens of feet into the air, high above the suspended monsters, rocketed towards the ground like a missile, and slammed his hammer down with the force of an avalanche. All the enemies around him were pulverized in an instant. But he didn't stop there. He brought up the hammer again and began swinging.

To the speechless Millelith witnessing, the entire event took only a few seconds. Despite the immense bulk of the armored warrior in front of them, he moved like a spirit. A very, very heavy spirit. He dashed and leapt about with blinding speed, shattering everything he struck, be it the enemies or the terrain. His hammer lashed out so quickly that the blasts of air from the swings forced them to blink to protect their eyes. The ground split and the rocks splintered from the raw force of his blows, as if even the Lord of Geo himself would be forced to submit to the absolute pummeling. Enemies were gored upon the horn on his helmet, crushed to paste beneath his armored feet, smashed to pulp by the golden hammer, and knocked so far into the air they cleared the peaks surrounding the Chasm and crashed to the ground on the outside, dead.

Nothing survived the onslaught. Within moments, nothing in the gorge was alive other than the Millelith themselves and the giant armored beast in front of them.

But the Tenno was just getting started. With a jump high into the air that had more akin to flight than jumping, he soared out over the gaping maw of the chasm, seemed to pause in midair for the briefest of moments, then plummeted downward out of sight at speeds no bolt loosed from any bow could catch.

The Millelith collapsed to ground, kneeling or sitting in exhaustion, the desperate fighting against these abominations leaving them drained beyond anything they had felt before. In the world of Teyvat, there were many powerful warriors. Vision wielders, capable of incredibly destructive elemental magic. Gods and Adeptus, great spirits with immense powers of their own. So what was it that the soldiers of the Millelith just witnessed? It was as if the great gods of the Archon war had come to life before their eyes from the stories they had heard, stories that were assuredly exaggerated by the storytellers to keep things entertaining, right? What else could cause such destruction so quickly? None of even the most powerful Vision holders could do what they just saw.

The chasm itself bore witness, its scars from the onslaught of this violent demigod of warfare evident as far as the eye could see. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of corpses littered the landscape across the entire chasm, like unfinished rice in a giant bowl. Some had stained even the high walls surrounding the chasm a hundred feet above the ground. Counting the bodies would be a futile endeavor, as most of them were in pieces, or were more fluid than solid, so vicious was the assault upon them. The walls of the mountain ranges were blackened and pitted by the multi-explosive weapon that flying ship fired, a ship that was still hovering above the chasm now, far out of reach, its massive engines yet making the air quiver with their power. The ground was splintered even as far back as they stood, and ahead in the chasm, it seemed not a single rock or structure remained unbroken.

A massive cloud of dust filled the air, making the view into the charnel house that the former mine had become hazy, yet not enough to hide the stomach-churning carnage from the unwilling eyes of the poor Millelith soldiers. They coughed harshly between gasps of air as they tried to fill their tired lungs with oxygen while battling the dust that coated their sweaty faces and uniforms. When they had regained their breath and enough of their sanity, one soldier turned to the de facto commander of the squad.

"Corporal," he said, for the Corporal was the highest surviving rank left, "what should we do?

The Corporal grimaced. As much as duty drove them, what could they do here? This was a fight of gods, or perhaps devils. Not humans.

"We return to the city and report this to the Qixing," he stated after a moment in thought. "Leave the bodies."

"But…sir…"

"I understand your misgivings, soldier," the Corporal's voice sounded as dead as the still warm bodies surrounding them, "but this is an emergency. For all of Liyue. Perhaps for all of Teyvat. Let the Lord of Geo claim them, and may the erosion of their flesh seed life anew in the soil."

The remaining few Millelith sat with their heads downcast, knowing their comrade was right, though this did nothing to calm the grief.

"We who remain alive still have a duty. So get up. We have some running to do." Despite his attempt to sound energetic and encouraging, the fatigue was evident in his voice.

Yet true to their duty, the soldiers rose to their feet and began jogging East toward the city.

Deep within the Chasm

Yelan was hiding. She was pretty good at avoiding attention when she wanted, and could disguise herself to fit in with almost any crowd, but now she was hiding. Blending, disguising, all that was useless here. She had dug herself under a small pile of rubble so as to avoid being seen completely.

She had been investigating the Chasm for a while now, and plenty had been going wrong as usual, but as of yesterday, EVERYTHING had started to go wrong. She felt it, like the breath of the devil on the back of her neck, that moment when space and time tore apart and that portal opened in the deep. She had very nearly succumbed herself to the terror and madness that flowed from it like a hellish miasma, and it was only by jabbing the point of one of her arrows into her own arm that the pain brought her mind back to her senses enough to run. And she was very good at running too.

Those cursed Abyss Heralds, playing with power they did not understand, she thought. They, and all the surrounding hilichurls, Abyss mages, and even the local fauna had gone completely frenzied, tearing even each other apart in their madness. The contaminating wave of Abyssal darkness began spreading throughout the depths, taking all that it touched; innocent miners, hilichurl tribes, even the nearly mindless slimes were affected. She continued to run, sprinting and climbing as fast as she could to stay ahead of the advancing insanity, when she heard it.

Her blood turned to ice at the sound. No earthly or unearthly being should be able to make a sound like that. A howl of voices innumerable, trembling with raw power, shimmering like music, piercing the ears straight into the mind and the soul.

Yelan was not one to scare easy. She had been dealing with scary nasties her whole life, and she had gone beyond being used to it and into almost getting a sick sense of enjoyment out of it. She couldn't deny she was a bit of a thrill-seeker.

There was no thrill in this. Only blood-curdling terror. The frenzied denizens of the Chasm had ceased their infighting when that...voice sounded, and by means she had no way of comprehending, began organizing and marching out of the depths. They were joined, out of seemingly nowhere, by other creatures, though that word perhaps could not be more wrong. Un-created atrocities, offenses to the natural order—limbs, shapes with hands and fingers jutting out at grotesque angles, writhing monsters shaped like some deranged spinal column. The worst was when those fragmented limbs combined—the abomination they created seemed to make reality itself cry out in pain at its existence.

So now she was hiding. She couldn't keep ahead of the swarm despite her natural speed, for they seemed to manifest out of the very walls. She was no slouch in combat either, but she was a realist first and foremost. She knew when she was outmatched, and would avoid combat if that was the case. And it was certainly the case here. Perhaps she could take on one or a few of these...things, but this army? She feared death would not be the end of whatever they had in store for her.

The thudding of marching feet, or other appendages, shook the ground as she lay flat under a pile of rocks and old scaffolding, long since rotted and collapsed. She held her breath, not knowing how sensitive the hearing of these beings was, and not willing to take the slightest risk of discovery. She tried to relax her body for fear of her pounding heart giving away her position.

In this moment of silence, she began hearing other things; whispering, muttering, inhuman voices murmuring words that meant nothing and everything. The voices came from every direction—the floor beneath her, the walls surrounding her, the air around her.

As if things couldn't get any creepier, she thought ruefully, a moment of dark humor giving her mind a brief feeling of respite.

The sound of marching began to recede in the distance, though she could still hear some kind of shuffling near her. VERY near her. She began to realize with horror that whatever was squirming across the ground was going to get very close to her hiding place.

Thump. Slide…

Thump. Slide…

Thump. Slide…

It bumped into one of the rotting beams holding up some of the pile of rocks she was hiding under. The whispering grew louder.

Eyphlahk ishlam juss vey shattarah…

One of the rocks rolled loose when its supporting beam was jostled. The whispers did not stop.

Eyphlahk ishlam juss vey shattarah…

It landed on Yelan's back. She could have withstood the pain silently. Had it been only pain, she wouldn't have breathed a sound. But it landed hard enough to force a tiny gasp out of her mouth by sheer weight on her lungs.

Yara vahk…

The crawling thing stopped.

Yelan gritted her teeth so hard blood began to drip from her mouth.

The pile of rocks and lumber that made her hiding place was dashed into the air, hundreds of pounds of rubble thrown like pebbles.

Well, there was no hiding now. Adrenaline spiking in the blink of an eye, she launched herself off the ground into combat.

She immediately shot off into her "lifeline" state, dashing inhumanly fast while trailing hydro elemental energy behind her like a string. She rushed past the monster that had found her—an arm, or rather what looked like if someone tried to create one when they had only ever heard of what an arm looked like by vague description, and the result was an affront to arms everywhere—and her skill bound the thing with her strand of power. With a slide on one knee and a clasp of her hand on the thread of elemental energy she trailed, she activated her ability, and the thread detonated with a blast of hydro. But she wasn't done yet. With a speed and smoothness born of years of harsh training, she whipped around with her bow at the ready and drawn, waiting only for a heartbeat for her power to imbue the tip of her arrow with her Breakthrough Barb, then loosed the arrow at the vile thing.

Her shot flew true and struck the monster right on its upraised palm, exploding with hydro energy.

The arm flinched and flailed for a moment…

…then resumed its crawling towards her.

"Tough one, aren't ya?" she snarled as she readied another arrow, ready to face this thing, a demon from hell itself for all she knew, in a fight to the death. The arm reared back like a cobra, fingers splayed like claws, preparing to smash her like a fly.

There was a blinding flash of light and a strange electro-like explosion, and the arm disintegrated into sand.

Her eyes barely had time to widen in surprise before a hulking armored figure slammed into the ground where the dust of what was left of the demon arm was still falling.

And there we have it, one more chapter in the bag. Teyvat is looking the worse for wear.

Fun fact about the Murmur: the non-boss versions have no armor, nor any form of damage attenuation. They are sheer health tanks. They have resistances to slash and viral, and are very vulnerable to radiation, but they straight up just have millions of HP on the Steel Path.

The Fragmented One, on the other hand...is just a straight up monster. Damage attenuation hell. As far as I can tell, it has a straight up DPS limiter, so no matter what you take, you cannot cheese it. That fight will take 15 minutes or so regardless to chew through the tens of millions of HP at a pretty much fixed rate. Also, better learn to like unavoidable magnetic procs and buff nullification!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the step up in action. There will be more, along with more twists and turns before this fight is ended and Teyvat faces a threat they've never seen the likes of before.

Merry Christmas, Happy Tennobaum, and an excellent New Year to you all.