The time came.
Kaiulani's "image" disappeared.
Seeing this, Mualani immediately turned to her childhood sweetheart and asked: "Rios, how can we head to the Night Kingdom?"
She didn't ask about the time.
Because she wanted to rush over right now.
"Simple." Rios waved his hand, and the space in front of him suddenly burned up.
Another dark and deep space appeared before everyone's eyes.
"Th-this is what?" Paimon jumped in fright. "It gives off such a creepy, eerie feeling; it's so scary!"
"This inside is the Night Kingdom." Rios explained. "I burned away the barrier between Natlan and the Night Kingdom; you can just enter directly from here."
"Burn... burned away?" Paimon's thought process couldn't quite comprehend it; something like this could actually be burned away?
"Don't be so surprised; my flames can burn away everything." Rios stuck out his thumb and pointed toward where Chasca was. "Just now, when Chasca came over for treatment, I used flames to burn away her wounds."
"This can be burned too? It feels like burning away wounds is even more absurd than burning away the world and the barrier to the Night Kingdom..." Paimon scratched her hair, mumbling.
[This can be burned too?]
[Bro, you're not the Pyro Archon; you're a conceptual god, right? So anything that's a thing can be burned?]
[This phrasing is starting to sound like Diga; as long as it has light, it can appear.]
[I've spent all my money. Diga: Quwa!]
[Pyro Archon: My flames can burn away everything.]
[Pyro Slime: Is that so?]
[Flame Without Form: Holding back laughter.]
[Amaterasu!]
[If the Pyro Archon's flames were Amaterasu, wouldn't you explode?]
[Honestly, this could work.]
[Kinich's flames are green fire; it's totally normal for the Pyro Archon's flames to come out as black flames.]
[Impossible, right? Kinich's flames are green just because they come from the Scions of the Canopy, and it matches his outfit well. Where on the Pyro Archon from head to toe matches black?]
[Maybe his heart is black.]
Compared to the players who had started memeing, the people in the Genshin world were on high alert.
"Pyro Archon, I'll go with you too." Mavuika stepped forward, her expression grave as she said.
"That works." Rios nodded. "With you there, Mualani and the others will be even safer."
"For insurance, before you go, accept this power." Rios spread open his palm, and orange-red fluorescent light fell on everyone like misty rain.
"I feel power surging up continuously!" Kachina said in surprise.
"This is the Pyro Archon's divine power." Kinich was all too familiar with this power.
"I have it too?" Lumine felt surprised. She hadn't expected that she, an outlander, could also receive a gift from the Pyro Archon.
"You willingly risked yourself to save our Natlan warriors; how could I not share some power with you?" Rios said with a smile.
"Wait, why don't I have any?" Paimon called out. "Everyone else got power; how come I don't feel anything."
"Oh... I forgot." Rios was telling the truth.
He had subconsciously treated Paimon as a non-combat unit, so when lending power earlier, he had directly overlooked her.
"Then can I get the Pyro Archon's power now too?" Paimon rubbed her little hands expectantly; finally, she wouldn't be someone who couldn't even beat a wild boar.
However, Mavuika spoke up and shattered Paimon's delusion: "Paimon, the Pyro Archon still needs to protect Natlan's safety and must reserve more divine power."
"With our current strength, we shouldn't encounter any more danger; there's no need for Paimon to fight."
High EQ: Paimon doesn't need to fight.
Low EQ: Paimon would just waste the Pyro Archon's power; better to stay as a mascot.
"Then... alright." Paimon spread her hands, feeling a bit regretful inside. "I thought I could show off my skills too."
"Traveler, looks like you'll have to protect me properly this time too." Paimon turned her gaze to her travel companion.
"No problem." Lumine made an OK hand gesture.
At the same time.
Something was off with the players' situation.
[Why did it suddenly jump to the character interface?]
[Wait, the Traveler's stats have improved across the board; base ATK actually went up by 80 directly!]
[How did you calculate the Traveler's base ATK so quickly?]
[Because my Traveler is equipped with a level 1 dull sword and hasn't equipped any Artifacts yet, just leveled up, so I knew right away.]
[So that move from the Pyro Archon actually directly boosted the Traveler's ATK?]
[Yeah, just like Alhaitham's Canned Knowledge; it really adds ATK, and more than Canned Knowledge does.]
[The Traveler's max level base ATK is only around 200-something; the Pyro Archon added almost half.]
[More precisely, it's two-fifths.]
[One Kun out of five (confirmed).]
[This Pyro Archon is really generous; at the start, he personally gave us a Vision, and now he's even giving us power.]
[Hurry up and thank Big Bro Pyro Archon?]
[Thanks Big Bro Pyro Archon, thanks Big Bro Pyro Archon.]
[This has to be the most generous Archon to us, right?]
[Do you think the Pyro Archon will give us a weapon later?]
[This could work!]
"This... I really don't have."
Looking at the barrage of comments from the players, Rios couldn't help but complain inwardly.
He hadn't prepared a weapon to give to the Traveler.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought about it; it was just that Xilonen's workload was already too much to handle, so where would there be extra energy to forge a new weapon for the Traveler?
But speaking of which, the idea of all-black flames was pretty interesting.
Maybe in the future, after he gets his own playable version, he could make flames of various different colors, with each Constellation unlocking a new color?
Then when fighting, it would look like a rainbow?
"Pyro Archon, thank you for lending us your power." Mavuika spoke on behalf of the group. "We will definitely bring Kaiulani back."
"Then I'll leave it to you." Rios also tried his best to put on a grave expression.
After all, among the people present, only he knew that Kaiulani was safe; mere Abyss monsters weren't her opponents at all.
However, after hearing Mavuika's words, he thought of something.
If next, he took back the power he gave to the Traveler, would the players' mentality explode?
That damn miHoYo, not even willing to give the protagonist 80 ATK; truly wolf-hearted and dog-lunged or something...
Rios thought about it and felt it wasn't very likely, after all, 80 ATK was too little.
If it were an increase of 800 base ATK, and then after letting the players enjoy it for a year, suddenly taking it back, that would definitely generate a lot of emotional value.
But right now, he could only add 80 base ATK; even if taken back, it wouldn't stir up much of a storm.