A roar that shook the world.
High above the ruined towers, Zhongli seized the moment. Four towering pillars of geo erupted from the ground, locking Möbius inside a bounded prison.
"Big brother, did you do that? That bump really hurts," she said, slowly surfacing from the ink-green ooze and rubbing her forehead as if it had struck something hard.
To her it felt like being trapped by a dragon king—only with four pillars. The golden geo barrier they formed wasn't much weaker than anything that had once contained the great wyrm. But to Möbius it hardly mattered.
"What is your purpose? Where did you come from?" Zhongli asked bluntly; he knew the fight wasn't over and hoped to glean something useful.
Good. Now to get Kaeya and the others to safety…
Seeing Zhongli pin the strange girl temporarily, Venti took the chance to fly down to the fallen—Kaeya, Diluc, and Childe—still lying nearby. He had to move them away before the battle widened.
At the same time, Venti felt guilty about his earlier performance and silently scolded himself. If Zhongli hadn't intervened when he did, the outcome could have been far worse.
Nearby, a Knight attempted to hoist Kaeya, and more Knights arrived carrying Diluc and Childe, nodding a ritual salute to Venti as he landed.
"Lord of the Wind," they said in reverence.
"We'll take them out of here immediately," Venti told them, and Zhongli nodded.
"Good. Get them back to Mondstadt and coordinate with Lisa—evacuate civilians if needed," Venti instructed. The Knights, bolstered by his words, hurried off.
"Will we win?" one Knight asked, voice wavering.
"Yes," Venti said with certainty, nodding hard. The Knights left with a new courage in their step.
"Wait for me—!" Paimon called, trailing behind the group. Exhausted as she was, she and the others—Aether/Lumine, Amber, Eula—had to see the scene for themselves. Earlier, while they were doing tasks that should have been handled by Jean, a thunderous sound came from the Dragonspine ruins; Lisa had rushed people over to investigate.
Paimon's jaw dropped when she saw the sight: ink-green viscous fluid seeping up from fissures in the ground; four columns with a golden shroud around them; inside that shroud, the same slimy green was receding like it was sinking back into the earth.
Then Möbius rose from the ooze with a coquettish laugh. The contrast of a small, charming girl emerging from that revolting substance made everyone's skin crawl.
Venti quickly shepherded the newcomers up to a safe ledge with a gust of wind. Whether out of faith or shock, nobody complained; they rose quietly to the high ground while the fight continued beneath them.
Below, Zhongli began his assault—sharp geo spears thrust toward Möbius. She only shrugged and flicked her hand. The ground around her bubbled with that black-green slime; little summoned things erupted—drill-like spikes, massive claws, jagged spears—which swarmed at the incoming pillars.
The collision was enormous. Stone and ink-green fluid rained outward; the Dragonspine ruins were blanketed in a grotesque shower of debris. Paimon shrank behind the Traveler and whispered, "This is terrifying—let's go."
But the Traveler kept watching. The white-clad figure wielding the geo spear—that figure was a god, and if a god had come here, maybe this was the deity who'd taken her sibling. She resolved not to leave until she had answers.
Others weren't so certain. Many watched in stunned silence: a little girl facing off with a god—how could that be?
Eula, looking at Venti, guessed aloud, "That must be Barbatos, and the one above—maybe the Geo Archon?" She had never seen a god's power until this moment. A god fighting a god—no mortal could make a scene like this.
Venti answered quietly to Eula's question: "She's not a god. Just know this—she's the enemy."
The ladders of assumption cracked. If she wasn't a god, how could she stand against one? The others were left reeling.
Suddenly, a small geo spear sprouted from beneath Möbius and pierced her chest—Zhongli had struck true. He followed with another spear that rammed the ground so violently the earth around it caved in; the pillar left a web of fissures across the crater. But when the dust cleared, Möbius was gone.
"Is it over?" they wondered. Zhongli's brow tightened.
A mocking laugh echoed—this time from beneath the ground. Cracks oozed that same ink-green fluid, which pooled and reformed. Möbius rose again.
"You tried to kill me? Death doesn't stick to me easily," she said, smiling, as if the act of being pierced had been an inconvenience at most. There was an unsettling certainty in her voice: whatever had happened to her, she revived.
Zhongli's face paled. He'd felt her presence vanish—he'd assumed she'd hidden herself. But if she truly shrugged off death, that changed everything. According to the laws he knew, death was final. Resurrection—unseen. He could not accept it easily.
Venti, likewise incredulous, suspected a trick: "She's lying. There must be a mechanism." Even gods don't casually reverse death.
Möbius only laughed. "You don't believe me? Then try to kill me again, big brother."
She flooded the battlefield with more of her summoned monstrosities. Zhongli gripped his spear and leapt down, cutting through the onslaught one by one until he stood before her. He thrust—and Möbius did not dodge.
Zhongli's spear pierced her through the chest.
"See? You can't kill me, big brother," Möbius said cheerfully, gripping the spear that ran through her.
Zhongli's composed face flickered with real confusion. How could someone be so unabashedly unharmed after such a mortal wound?
Venti found himself doubting what he'd long believed about the finality of death. If Möbius was truly immortal—if she resurrected—what kind of threat did that present? Their understanding of the world tilted to one side.
Zhongli reacted with all his strength: he sent a shockwave that blasted Möbius outward, then rained every geo spear down on her location. Explosions tore the ruins; the wind hammered the high ledges, and weaker soldiers were thrown clear, some tumbling far before they regained their footing.
When the dust settled, the ruins were pocked with craters and huge spears embedded at odd angles. The battlefield had been rewritten—only gods could bruise the world like that.
But then, as everyone scanned the blasted terrain, the sky choked with dark clouds. A sizzling green lightning began to fall—green bolts, the same color as Möbius's attacks. The Knights cried out in alarm.
Venti looked up and froze; the green lightning matched what he'd seen earlier. Möbius hadn't been finished. Could she truly not be killed?
Before anyone could think it through, a colossal trident-like appendage swept out of the green ooze and struck Zhongli—throwing the Geo Archon against a far cliffside. The monstrous form that emerged was unlike anything they had seen: a crown-topped head, Möbius's body visible within its maw, a serpent-like tail, multiple fins or wing-like protrusions, and two huge hands—one clutching a massive trident.
The knights could only stare, trembling. Their gods—wounded and blasted aside by this thing—lay spread across the field. The foundations of their beliefs quaked.
Venti measured the danger. Möbius's power in that monstrous form far outmatched the smaller incarnation they'd first fought. He wanted to rush in, to support Zhongli—but he knew his limits. Charging now would only make things worse.
Eula, near the ledge, drew her weapon and pointed it at the abomination, heart pounding. Even with two Archons on the field, they were on the back foot.
Zhongli, bruised, rose from the cliff and tested the air. Möbius's presence was different now—stronger, stranger—and the Archon's face hardened.
"Time to finish this, big brothers and sisters," Möbius purred. She raised the trident to the blackened sky—and an ocean of dense green lightning began to fall, striking the ruins in a terrifying storm.
Eula felt certain death in that moment; the lightning was indiscriminate, a rain of annihilation. But at the last instant, Zhongli's geologic flared: a golden shield snapped into place around the group, the green bolts rattling off it in ripples.
Möbius watched Zhongli through the trident's teeth. "You're so self-sacrificing," she teased, noting his battered clothing.
She was poised to deliver a killing blow—when suddenly a purple knightly spear slammed into the ground between her and Zhongli.
From the high ledge, a quiet figure was observed. Now the real work begins.
In a twist, the "Möbius" on the field had been swapped: the true protagonist's base form had transferred into another body using a thousand-man core from the Honkai world. The current Möbius was now an avatar; the original had shifted into Yulan Deldr—the real protagonist—and she stepped forward to act.
She had made the switch exactly to take initiative.
"Start work—" she thought, and advanced.
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