Ruler of Death: Have I Lived to the End?
Xia Yu opened her eyes and met the blood-red giant eyeballs before her eye to eye... no, eight eyes to two. It had six eyes, while Xia Yu had two.
After finishing another round of rest, she pushed open the bedroom door again. When she opened her eyes amid the white light filling the sky, she saw that giant eyeball staring fixedly at her.
"What are you looking at?" she asked irritably.
"...A new Descender." As Ronova, Ruler of Death, the only one among the Heavenly Principles' four Arbiters who could still be considered diligent, it could be said that the entire Teyvat was counting on her to maintain order everywhere.
She had just been waiting in Natlan for that tiresome cycle to end, when she suddenly sensed an aura that could not be ignored abruptly appear in Teyvat.
Or rather, she had no intention of restraining it at all.
In Ronova's eyes, what this meant was very simple.
No, although everyone was slacking off and basically turning a blind eye to the little movements of the seven nations on the ground, this completely undisguised attitude of yours... is provocation, right? It's definitely provocation, right?
Could she tolerate that?
Absolutely not, okay!
So she cast her gaze over, wanting to see who it was that wanted to stir up trouble this time.
As a result, the moment she opened her eyes, she saw a person whose entire aura was utterly incompatible with Teyvat... huh, so it was a Descender. An unexpected gain?
Ronova immediately wanted to give this newcomer a lesson. Even if Phanes had fallen into slumber, the current Teyvat was not a place where just anyone could come and act wantonly!
Looking at the giant eyeball's clearly hostile manner, Xia Yu lowered her head and looked at her own body.
Huh. Just looking at the absurdly high 'stilts' on her feet, Xia Yu could roughly tell who she had turned into this time.
Wasn't this my good niece?
She reached up and touched her head. Sure enough, two long crimson horns rose toward the sky.
Herrscher of Thunder—Raiden Mei.
And the giant eyeball in front of her... emmm, had she finally returned to Teyvat?
I remember this is the Ruler of Death, right?
A little troublesome. The Herrscher of Thunder probably can't quite suppress her... so there's only one answer!
Xia Yu closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the long horns on her forehead had vanished, replaced by an even more mature-looking face.
Her thumb lightly touched the long blade named Naught in her hand, gently pushing out just a tiny bit of the blade.
"Want to fight?" She raised her head and met the blood-red eyeballs before her gaze.
"..." The Ruler of Death felt her entire being turn unwell upon hearing this.
What was going on!?
Just now, although the person had looked like a strong enemy, she might not necessarily have been unable to handle her. Besides, she was not the only Ei of the Heavenly Principles. Although her other colleagues were all slacking off, if a real fight broke out, they
wouldn't just stand by and watch.
So how did the enemy before her, who had just been someone she could still wrestle with, instantly turn into an existence far beyond her reach in the blink of an eye?
That aura... too dangerous, too uncanny... simply like a Nihility that would devour everything and assimilate all things... yet it was not the Abyss.
Ronova instantly chickened out.
She had no choice but to chicken out. Just judging by strength, she absolutely could not win. Unless Phanes jolted awake from his dying sickbed, no one in the current Teyvat could defeat her!
"Let's discuss this." Xia Yu pushed the long blade back into its sheath. "I'll stay on this planet for a while and then leave. How about you pretend you didn't see me?"
"In the universe, trust is an extremely luxurious item." Ronova began to complain about her colleagues. It was fine if they slacked off normally, but what time was it now? The fire was already burning their eyebrows
off!
Why had no one come to support her after so long?
As for not believing her... that was also understandable.
After all, the last Traveler who said they were just here to take a look turned around and bewitched the Morning Star, the Goddess of the Dawnstar, the archangel Koitar, into raising the flag of rebellion against the Heavenly Principles!
They directly shattered Teyvat's most peaceful pastoral age.
That was the ancient golden age after the Primordial One, Phanes, defeated the Seven Dragon Lords and created Human, and before the outbreak of the War of Funerary Flame. It came from the official historical text of Before Sun and Moon, and was Teyvat's only
truly perfect age without suffering or scarcity.
If there was famine, food and sweet rain would fall from the heavens.
If there was barrenness, mineral deposits would grow from the earth.
If melancholy spread, the high heavens would respond with sound.
The only forbidden thing was to lose to temptation. But the path to temptation had already been sealed.
In that age, the land was forever abundant. There were no famines, no disasters, no diseases. When resources were needed, the earth spontaneously produced them. Rainwater, fruits, and mineral deposits could be obtained at will. Human had no
survival pressure whatsoever.
Heaven and mankind were connected. Angels (Seelie) guided all beings. The two-winged angel race were envoys of the high heavens, possessing supreme wisdom and beauty. They walked among mortals to convey revelations of the Heavenly Principles, teaching Human knowledge and
etiquette. Human and angels lived together in harmony. The archangel Koitar was the leader of all angels in that age, the Morning Star archangel.
In that age, the world had no calamities or disasters. The Abyss was completely isolated. Phanes used the eggshell to seal off the Abyssal passage. Corrosion, monsters, and disasters did not exist. The sun and moon moved eternally. The three Moon Goddesses
(Frost Moon/Constant Moon/Iris Moon) hung in the firmament, and moonlight protected the land.
The sole prohibition: do not touch the temptation of the Abyss.
The Heavenly Principles only established one commandment, because the Abyss represented Nihility, desire, and destruction. The passage had been completely sealed, and ordinary mortals originally had no chance to come into contact with the taboo.
It could be said to have been Teyvat's most peaceful age.
Then, a Traveler from an ancient civilization came to Teyvat, then bewitched the archangel, the Goddess of the Dawnstar, Koitar (from Ronova's perspective), and started the War of Funerary Flame.
At the very beginning, Phanes still had concerns for all living beings between heaven and earth and kept controlling the scale of the war, until the first master of this planet, the Dragon Lord Nibelung, returned with a body full of Abyssal power and tore open
the eggshell...
The world was shattered. The perfect eggshell was destroyed. The Abyss truly invaded Teyvat. Phanes could no longer care about such things. Like a war god, he suppressed the angel rebellion with one hand and
killed Nibelung with the other, even shattering two moons along the way...
That battle was fought until heaven collapsed and earth split. The youngest angel, Niko, led the mortals under her protection through the flames of war and struggled to survive, but in the end, of an entire nation, only she remained.
The archangel Koitar got what she asked for. Because she sympathized with mortals and questioned the Heavenly Principles' confinement of thought and freedom, she raised the flag of rebellion. The price was that the entire angel race was ordered to choose between strength and memory.
Choosing strength would make them fall into Depravity and become monsters. Choosing memory would make them degenerate into the Seelie now seen everywhere in Teyvat. Once they favored a single Human, they would completely dissipate.
As for Niko, Phanes saw that she genuinely knew nothing and had not participated, so he allowed her to preserve herself at the price of losing speech.
These were the 'good deeds' done by the person who once said they were just coming to take a look!
How could Ronova dare to believe now?
Of course, the archangel certainly was not a fool. Before raising the flag of rebellion, she had already foreseen her own defeat. No one knew better than her how powerful her creator was.
But she still raised the flag of rebellion without regard for anything, and that Traveler from an ancient civilization had not visited Teyvat for the first time either. They had come long ago, during the era when the Dragon Lord Nibelung ruled, and had even
invited Nibelung to leave together with them.
But at that time, they did not choose to interfere. Yet after coming to This vast land again, perhaps after learning something from the archangel's mouth, they then wanted to overthrow Phanes's rule no matter what.
One had to know that among their race, interfering in the affairs of other civilizations was absolutely forbidden. To make them interfere despite the prohibition, and to make even the angel personally created by Phanes raise the flag of rebellion...
perhaps Phanes really had done something.
Even they could no longer stand watching.
"You don't dare make a move." Xia Yu looked at her hesitation and said with certainty, "You can't beat me. Even all of you together can't beat me."
"Unless the master of this place wakes up, none of you pose any threat to me."
"But can he really wake up so easily?" A trace of expression appeared on Acheron's usually paralyzed-looking face. "I'm afraid it would be very difficult. Otherwise, this world wouldn't be in such
a broken and battered state."
"You cannot imagine the power of the Heavenly Principles," Ronova could only keep up a stubborn front.
"Believe it or not, even if he wakes up, he won't go to war with me." Xia Yu reached out and stroked the long blade in her hand. "For people like us, if we truly fight to the death, it would be a catastrophe for a planet. So what if he really can defeat me?"
"Under the aftermath of our battle, could this tiny planet still exist?"
Xia Yu was not Nibelung, not an opponent Phanes could settle.
Nibelung was very strong. It could lead a civilization out of a planet, build the three Moon Goddesses to protect its homeland, and travel through the universe with its physical body.
But in the Honkai: Star Rail world, where lunatics were everywhere, if one truly counted high-end combat power, it definitely would not rank among them.
From this, it could be known that Phanes, who fell into a sleep he could not wake from after defeating it, also could not possibly possess power exceeding that of an Emanator.
But when it came to this universe, Xia Yu did not dare be careless either. Something like the pitch-black fate that swept across the entire universe... forget Emanators, just by that scale alone, at minimum it would have to be an Aeon to handle it.
The Traveler's civilization was incomparably advanced. Over a million years, they successively conquered time and space. But even so, the confidence of this incomparably advanced civilization was crushed to pieces by the annihilation that would eventually come to this universe.
To avoid the final annihilation, the once-passionate pioneers sealed off the network path that had once pierced through the universe, then fell silent in the center of the star cluster void. Holding the last thread of hope, the pioneers who commanded photons sent recorders toward
the limit of gravitons, praying to find an answer at the final end-point of time.
In the end, they succeeded, successfully reaching the end of time.
They also failed. At the end of fate, there was no turning point as imagined, and no miracle. Only empty disorder and darkness remained.
All radiance vanished without a trace. All possibilities were exhausted. Even the tiniest specks of dust drifted away from one another.
Every formula and every constant they had discovered over the long years silently announced their final death date.
Then the entire race shut themselves away.
So this universe was not simple at all.
"How about you pretend you didn't see me?" Xia Yu looked toward those scarlet eyeballs. "Assessing the situation is a valuable quality."
Ronova had now been completely put on the spot.
According to her duty, she definitely could not agree, but reality was just this unreasonable.
She could not beat her.
Even Phanes personally coming might not necessarily be able to beat her!
Ronova looked around her again. Damn it, where were Istaroth and Naberius? And Asmoday too. How long had it been since she last heard any news of her?
In the end, an arm could not twist a thigh. Ronova had no other choice.
One eyeball detached from its socket and considerately transformed into an eye-shaped accessory, floating in front of Xia Yu. Interestingly, that eyeball was closed.
The meaning was already very obvious.
At most, I can close one eye and open the other.
Seeing how sensible she was, Xia Yu also put away her Acheron form in response. The Herrscher of Thunder, stepping on her 'stilts,' appeared once again. She reached out, took the small pendant, and hung it at her waist.
The giant eyeball in front of her also closed directly. That speed was really something, as if she were terrified Xia Yu would make her stay.
She had probably gone off to settle accounts with her colleagues now.
Xia Yu could quite understand how she felt about that. It was one thing for everyone to slack off normally, but now that something had happened, not a single one of you showed up, leaving me to shoulder it alone!
Is this how colleagues act?
No doubt her mood right now was extremely explosive.
As for why she had been discovered the moment she entered Teyvat this time... emmm, Xia Yu could only say that was a matter of course.
The first time she came to Teyvat, she had still been using Fufu's initial body. It only had a Vision, and with that bit of strength, plus the Vision being registered as a local resident, and the four Arbiters usually not being so bored that their balls hurt
that they looked everywhere, it was too normal that they didn't discover her.
But now, Raiden Mei, such a big person, had refreshed in Teyvat. As the Herrscher of Thunder in her prime, she might not be able to defeat Phanes, but she still had a chance against the four Arbiters. How could a strong person like that possibly not be discovered?
After all, she had not deliberately hidden herself.
Whew. Xia Yu stretched lazily and lowered her head to look at the land below.
Let me see where I arrived this time... huh? It's an island!
And this shape looks familiar... Watatsumi Island?
Oh ho, Inazuma, huh. Xia Yu touched her own face. This was going to be fun.
Thinking this, she carried thunderlight that filled the sky and descended openly toward the shrine in the center of Watatsumi Island.
Watatsumi Island, Sangonomiya Shrine.
This was the political and religious center of Watatsumi Island. It was both the main shrine where the great serpent was worshiped and the residence of the Sangonomiya Family, as well as the resistance army's headquarters. The Divine Priestess Sangonomiya Kokomi presided over
all ceremonies and government affairs here.
Decorated with giant shells, coral, and fluorescent algae, its overall pearlescent water-blue color completely distinguished it from the red maple torii of the Grand Narukami Shrine.
After Sangonomiya Kokomi finished handling the latest military affairs, she forced herself to keep up her spirits. She still couldn't rest. There were still many matters of people's livelihood waiting for her to handle.
Sigh, Watatsumi Island has no talent. I have to personally handle everything.
Let me see, food is insufficient again... I wonder if the Crux...
Rumble!
Her thoughts were interrupted by a tremendous clap of thunder.
The next moment, Sangonomiya Kokomi's face turned deathly pale.
Without a doubt, in the current Inazuma, there was only one person who could stir such thunder.
Or rather, one god.
She slowly rose to her feet and walked outside the shrine, looking at the god at the center of the Thundercloud.
"Narukami Ogosho... sama?"
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