Ding.
The instant he closed his eyes, Khamsin's body suddenly staggered. He stumbled back three or four steps, nearly collapsing to the ground!
"Hah!"
A heavy breath escaped him.
"…"
"Are you alright?"
Greater Lord Rukkhadevata asked, a hint of surprise in her voice. This was not surprise at Khamsin's "weakness," but at the fact that he was actually "strong" enough to enter that place and come back out!
"…"
"Lord 'Dendro Archon',"
"I presume you have never gone 'down there' yourself, have you?"
Khamsin pressed a hand to his forehead, shaking his head a few times. The psychic impact had almost forced him to revert to his true form.
"Naturally."
"It is, after all, something that even the 'Maintainers' fear."
Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's voice now carried a palpable degree of conviction that it lacked before.
"In other words, I have passed your 'test'?"
"I would not dare."
"…"
"It doesn't matter."
In the end, Khamsin decided not to dwell on this minor stratagem. In truth, he had something far more important to do: permanently sever and seal away the memory he had just witnessed.
As a "special envoy" carrying out a secret decree, he was well aware that there were some things he was not meant to know. His current status, and his Authority of Consciousness which far surpassed others of his rank, were precisely a sign of him "knowing his place."
What had Khamsin seen?
A tree.
A sapling that had grown from a slender branch, or rather, a tender shoot. To be more precise, it was a new sprout of the Imaginary Tree, through which quantum energy flowed.
Khamsin had never seen such a thing.
But that didn't stop him from speculating. A branch of the Tree, containing countless civilizations and parallel worlds, had lost its battle with the Quantum Sea. After the branch was eroded by quantum energy, the Imaginary Tree had discarded it into the Sea.
That wasn't the crucial part.
The main point was that this tiny branch, after corroding down to its current size, had been fished out of the sea by some existence!
The Empire had a wealth of experience in salvaging leaves and world bubbles. But salvaging a branch… it wasn't a matter of difficulty, but of sheer, impossible luck!
Unlike a leaf, a branch of the Imaginary Tree, no matter how small, was equivalent to having its own pocket of imaginary space. While the Imaginary energy within was not as inexhaustible as the Tree's main trunk, the length of time it could be used could only be described with numbers far exceeding tens of millions of years!
A great deal of intelligence, especially some contradictory pieces, could be answered by that one glimpse:
The [Scions of Long].
The [Scions of Long], appearing from who knows where, had chanced upon the continent of Teyvat after it fell into the Sea. They fished this world out of the Quantum Sea and hung it back on the Tree. This was indeed something the [Scions of Long] would do. Most of them were peaceful, but there were many types who were fond of treasure. However, as a weaker group among the star-faring civilizations, having lost the protection of the "Astral God of Immortality, Long," they were indeed fond of hiding in various nooks and crannies of the universe to avoid persecution.
The vicinity of the Quantum Sea, due to its unpredictable dangers—which is precisely how it was viewed by the civilizations high on the branches of the Tree—was often a prime choice for the [Scions of Long].
This was the first master of the Teyvat continent: The "Dragon King."
Unfortunately, these (seven) [Scions of Long] were unable to hold onto the branch.
An existence that hunted the [Scions of Long], or perhaps a traveler who discovered this place by chance, arrived. In Teyvat, this outsider was called the "First Throne, the Primordial One, Phanes." After defeating the [Scions of Long], it claimed the branch as its own.
Following this, Phanes delegated its own authority, creating four shadows that respectively possessed the powers of "Life," "Death," "Void," and "Time"—the "Maintainers of the Heavenly Principles."
Sound familiar?
Indeed, this was extremely similar to what the Monarch had done. In other words, this fellow was very likely another one of Lu Xing's "brothers and sisters."
The "Astral God of Order" possessed an immense variety of powers, but this "sibling" clearly did not have a license to use quantum energy. That is to say, to use the power of the branch, it would require further refinement and processing.
However, during this process, it absolutely could not attract the Honkai. Whether the Tree would reclaim the branch was one thing; more importantly, if one of its "other siblings" came to conduct the assessment, things would get out of hand.
To this end, Phanes controlled the degree of the civilization's development internally, and externally, it established a barrier surrounding the entire planet to block observation from the outside.
But unfortunately for it, this barrier did not last long. During a battle initiated by the unidentified "Second Throne" (either an internal rebellion of the shadows or a new outsider), a breach was opened in this defensive shield, allowing Teyvat to be observed by the Empire once again.
As for the rest of the story… Khamsin's mental strength was insufficient to bear any more memories from the branch.
All these speculations, along with the other histories recorded in the branch, would be judged by His Majesty the Emperor after he reported them.
The existence of ley lines and the Authority of Time were both, as expected, dependent on the Tree, albeit in a rather special way. For Khamsin, this gain in intelligence was already more than enough.
"The contract is fulfilled."
Khamsin looked at the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata beside him. A crystal, shimmering like gold but not quite, appeared in his slowly opening palm.
"This is your down payment."
"An 'Enlightenment Crystal,' once bestowed upon me by His Majesty the Emperor."
At the Legion Commander level, unless one was a simple-minded brute of pure thought and power, they were all well-versed in the rules of transaction.
"It can, with the great power of 'Erudition,' awaken the consciousness of all things."
"If you have a child you are particularly fond of…"
Khamsin tossed the crystal to Greater Lord Rukkhadevata.
"You might as well try to awaken it."
"Consider it a gift in return for showing me the 'goods'."
---o---
The perspective shifts back to Mondstadt.
"Oh~"
Sensing the rapidly approaching gale, Wendy dispersed the storm in her hands for a second time. She had deliberately allowed Andrius to send a distress signal on the warm winds precisely to wait for this master to return.
"Much faster than I expected."
Wendy narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Two [Higher Primordial Species]."
"It seems… the wind here isn't so obedient after all."
Wendy crushed the nascent cyan vortex in her palm. The Demon God known as Barbatos was even more capable than she had imagined. The ability to read intelligence from the wind was extremely rare, yet this fellow had "coincidentally" mixed false information into the winds. Other aspects aside, at least in terms of subtlety, the "second-most ancient" Archon still had some tricks up his sleeve.
At this moment—on the far side of the clear sky, a six-winged dragon was already soaring towards them!