The moment Decarabian's consciousness faltered, Coppelia embraced the floating Columbina, wind erupting from her back as she flew toward the violently flickering mass of energy.
The instant they made contact, Coppelia manipulated the authority of wind, forcing away the uncontrolled gales surrounding the energy mass.
At the same time, Columbina extended her arms and embraced the energy mass. She frantically absorbed the escaping lunar power with her body while focusing her mind intensely, delving her consciousness into the energy mass to control the power within and prevent it from exploding. Because of this, she had no spare mental energy to maintain their weightless state. The forward momentum, combined with gravity, pulled them down toward the level below.
Meanwhile, Gunnhildr and Lumiere flew forward, preparing to deliver the final, fatal blow before Decarabian could regain consciousness.
But Decarabian awoke at that moment. His divine body shuddered, shattering the remnants of the light's power within Him. At the same time, his double-tipped wind spear exploded, kicking up a fierce gale that repelled the two people and one sprite who had drawn near.
Afterward, He bent slightly, pressing a hand to his chest to calm the chaotic gales within, his gaze falling upon Amos at the side.
A tearing pain dragged Amos from her unconscious state.
She tried to listen to the sounds around her but captured only a dead silence. Her ears felt blocked, as if a warm liquid was trickling out.
She struggled to lift eyelids that felt glued shut. In her blurry vision was the figure she had looked up to for decades, now locked in fierce battle with three others.
Every thrust of the King's spear was condensed from the will of the storm. His gaze, through the shadow of his helm, was locked firmly on the "enemies" before Him.
The King was so utterly focused.
Utterly focused...
A wave of sorrow enveloped her heart, sharper and more unbearable than any physical pain.
Why? Why was the King's gaze always turned "outward"? Fixed on some ethereal distance? Or even on his "enemies"?
Why... could he not shift it slightly, to look at the people so close to him, to look at her, who had accompanied Him for decades, who saw Him as her only faith and light?
The heartache from this unanswerable question nearly suffocated her. She could no longer bear to watch, and her eyelids drooped weakly.
A moment later, she used all her strength to open them again.
The sight before her nearly made her aching heart stop.
The King's armor... was shattered. That magnificent and imposing cyan armor was now covered in cracks, revealing the fainter, blurry light and shadow beneath.
Vicious wounds covered His body. A cyan divine power that was not His own churned and corroded at the injuries.
"Deicide..." Two cold words suddenly drilled into her nearly blank mind.
She was dying. She could feel her life slipping away with the blood flowing from her wounds.
The King... was likely not far from death either.
No!
She hadn't... she hadn't made the King truly look at her even once! To end like this? She was not resigned! Absolutely not!
A strange strength supported her. As if she were about to snap her own neck, she struggled to turn her head, her gaze searching beside her for a weapon.
Then, she froze.
Her beloved longbow was lying quietly by her side, right under her unconsciously outstretched palm.
She was a little dazed, unable to remember how it had returned to her.
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that it was here.
And since it was here, then...
Amos's fingers, trembling on the verge of death, gripped the cold body of the bow.
With the last of her strength, she raised her arm. Her other hand drew the bowstring, and an arrow of pure white light appeared in an instant!
She would join the ranks of the deicides. She would become the King's "enemy."
That way... only that way... would the King surely look at her! This time, He will definitely look! Definitely!!
With this twisted conviction, she released the bowstring.
The arrow of light left the string without a sound. It crossed the short distance and effortlessly pierced through layer after layer of obstruction, embedding itself in the god's heart.
Decarabian's figure stiffened abruptly, and the surging divine power around Him suddenly collapsed.
Soon, He recovered, turned His head, and for the first time, "looked" at Amos.
That gaze merely swept over her for an instant before turning away indifferently, once again looking beyond the high tower.
But Amos... was satisfied.
The King... looked at me. An indescribable warmth rose from her cold heart, instantly flowing through her limbs. This was perhaps the second-warmest moment of her life.
Scalding tears seeped into her eyes without warning, blurring the imminent, eternal darkness.
Her thoughts seemed to break free from the shackles of time, drifting back to the day she was chosen as an attendant, when she first stepped into this high tower with unparalleled reverence and humble adoration.
She stood at the magnificent entrance, straining to lift her young face, imagining the majestic figure on the throne...
Despair receded like a tide.
The pain, too, quietly disappeared.
The last of the light slowly faded from her eyes.
The fingers gripping the bow gradually relaxed.
The longbow in her hand, which had been emitting a faint blue light, also lost its radiance, dimmed, and became a lonely purple.
Decarabian's gaze swept past Amos without lingering for a moment, then shifted abruptly to the east.
There, the originally seamless, grayish-white wind wall had been torn open, revealing a hideous, gaping hole!
Without the slightest hesitation, Decarabian transformed into a streak of cyan light and shot out, heading straight for the breach.
Vast divine power was madly mobilized, attempting to mend the shocking wound.
Gunnhildr, Lumiere, and Venti followed close behind, rushing out of the high tower. They could not let the wind wall close again!
Outside the wall, the King of the North Wind, Andrius, would not miss such a rare opportunity.
This silver giant wolf, as massive as a mountain, its mane flying in the north wind. It raised its head and let out a long howl that shook heaven and earth.
The frigid north wind swirling around it instantly condensed and compressed, transforming into an enormous, circular saw of ice and wind whose edge glinted with a lethal, cold light. With a piercing shriek, it slammed viciously into the breach in the wind wall!
The circular saw spun madly, pushing relentlessly westward along the wind wall. Like a hot knife through butter, it forcibly sawed a continuously extending, narrow crack in that wall of despair!
The pent-up north wind found its outlet, bursting violently from the crack and slamming wildly in both directions!
The entire wind wall let out a mournful cry, unable to bear the strain. Like a balloon that had been sliced by a small knife and then inflated from within, the crack expanded and spread with irreversible momentum!
Below, the escaping, violent divine winds slammed into the mountains surrounding Mondstadt, causing a chain of collapses.
Boulders rumbled as they rolled down, grinding the long-empty buildings below to dust and kicking up a sky full of smoke.
And in the open ground of the inner ring, all the people who were born and raised within the wind wall gathered together. At this moment, they all held their breath, looking up in unison.
Through the massive crack that stretched across the sky, the children of Mondstadt, for the first time in their lives, saw the real sky!
Himmel lay under the temporary shelter of some ruined walls. His right lung was severely injured, and blood filled his trachea, bringing an intense feeling of suffocation.
His consciousness drifted on the edge of intense pain and clarity, but his gaze remained stubbornly fixed on the sky, which was still obscured by the wind wall.
He prayed silently in his heart, praying for Venti's success, praying that this cage that had imprisoned Mondstadt for four hundred years would soon dissipate.
The suppressed and urgent voices of the physicians reached his ears, sounding as if from a great distance:
"The bleeding won't stop!"
"The lung injury... there's nothing we can do..."
"His willpower... it's a miracle..."
Himmel paid them no mind.
All his attention was captured by the suddenly erupting, ever-widening crack in the wind wall.
He saw it! The grayish-white barrier was crumbling, and what was revealed behind it was... the sky!
The real sky!
The sky at this moment was not a clear azure.
Dawn had just broken over the horizon, dyeing the clouds piled on the skyline with a faint, warm gold.
The sky itself was a hazy, pale gray, carrying a hint of dawn's shyness, yet it was far more vivid, far vaster, far more... free than that eternally unchanging, grayish-white wind wall.
An indescribable sense of satisfaction welled up in his heart.
He fumbled with his trembling hand at the pocket on his thigh and, with his last ounce of strength, took out a brown eagle's feather.
He slowly raised the feather, aiming it at the newborn sky behind the crack.
His vision began to blur, but he could almost see a nimble eagle spreading its wings, soaring past the golden clouds, and disappearing into the endless azure.
A genuine smile curved his lips.
Then, the raised arm slowly fell.
The feather drifted gently onto his chest, like a peaceful period at the end of a sentence.
A nearby physician reached out, wanting to make a final effort, but in the end, sighed and lowered his hand, merely placing it silently over his chest in a salute to the young poet.
___
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