The journey back from the whispering dark of the woods was a slow, grueling ordeal. Every step was a battle against the screaming static that filled my mind, a phantom echo of the Abyssal hymn. The world, once sharpened to a painful clarity by Lisa's attunement ritual, was now warped and distorted. The gentle rustle of leaves sounded like whispers of malice, the scent of damp earth carried a phantom stench of decay, and the natural flow of elemental energy felt sluggish and sick, as if the very air was fighting off a fever.
Kaeya was a silent, steady presence at my side. He had seen the state I was in the moment I'd handed him the Resonance Tine. The mission's success was written in the dark, captured energy of the crystal; its price was written all over my pale, trembling form. He didn't push me with questions or rush our pace. He simply became a shield, his one good eye constantly scanning our surroundings, his hand never far from his sword, allowing me to focus what little energy I had left on just putting one foot in front of the other. The dynamic had shifted. I was not just his subordinate anymore; I was a fragile, invaluable asset that he had pushed to the absolute limit, and he seemed to feel the weight of that responsibility.
"We're not going to the headquarters," he said, his voice a low command as the city walls came into view, stark and grey in the pre-dawn light. "We're going directly to the library. Lisa needs to see this, and you, immediately."
The library was a sanctuary of silence and order in the waking city. The morning light streamed through the high arched windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. We bypassed the main reading room and went straight to Lisa's private workshop. She was there, as was Jean. It was clear they had kept vigil all night. Jean, who had likely been pacing for hours, rushed forward the moment she saw us, her face a canvas of sleepless anxiety. Lisa remained by her alchemical apparatus, but her violet eyes, sharp and perceptive, took in my condition with a single, sweeping glance.
"Arthur!" Jean exclaimed, stopping just short of grabbing me. "Are you alright? You look…"
"He succeeded," Kaeya said, his voice cutting through her worry. He placed the Resonance Tine on Lisa's workbench.
The crystal was no longer the pure, clear object she had given me. It was now a thing of profound ugliness, a solid piece of night that seemed to swallow the light around it. A nauseating, dark purple energy pulsed faintly from its core. Lisa, a powerful Electro Vision holder, instinctively recoiled, a crackle of protective ozone flaring around her for a moment.
"By the Seven…" she breathed, her usual playful demeanor completely gone, replaced by the grim fascination of a scholar staring at a plague sample. "The concentration of raw, undiluted Abyssal corruption… Arthur, you were exposed to this directly?"
Before I could answer, she was at my side, her gloved fingers gently tilting my chin up. Her eyes weren't just looking at me; they were scanning me, reading the chaotic, discordant aura of Abyssal residue clinging to my soul like a shroud. "You poor thing," she murmured, her voice now filled with a genuine, almost maternal concern. "You didn't just listen to the hymn; you let it wash over you completely. You're still resonating with it." She turned to Jean. "Get me the Sunsettia-infused calming oils and a basin of purified water. Now."
She steered me to a chair, her touch surprisingly gentle. "Hold still, cutie. We need to ground you before that nasty echo decides to take up permanent residence."
Lisa's 'cleansing' was not a grand ritual, but a quiet, focused application of her profound elemental knowledge. She had me drink a bitter but calming herbal tea while she worked. She didn't use grand spells, but rather a series of soft, glowing Electro runes that she drew in the air around me. Each rune seemed to target and neutralize a specific thread of the lingering Abyssal static in my mind. It felt like she was meticulously tuning a complex instrument, gently coaxing my frayed senses back into harmony with the natural world. The screaming static in my head subsided into a dull headache, and the world slowly began to feel solid and real again.
When she was finished, I felt drained, but sane. The oppressive weight had been lifted, though a faint, phantom ache remained.
"That's the best I can do for now," she said, looking tired herself. "The rest will require time and rest. You were incredibly brave, Arthur. And incredibly lucky. Few could touch a power like that and walk away with their will intact."
With my immediate condition stabilized, Lisa turned her full, formidable attention to the Resonance Tine. She placed it within a complex apparatus of glass beakers, copper wiring, and arcane lenses. "Now," she said, her eyes gleaming with scholarly fire, "let's hear what the Abyss has to say."
She began the analysis. With a flick of her wrist, a controlled stream of Electro energy was channeled into the device, stimulating the captured Abyssal energy within the crystal. A low, dissonant hum filled the workshop, a sound that grated on the ears and made the teeth ache. It was the hymn, translated into audible sound. It was a song of slow, patient decay, of falling towers and dying stars, a melody that promised the peace of utter non-existence. Jean covered her ears, her face pale. Kaeya stood like a statue, his expression unreadable as he listened to the voice of his nation's ancient enemy.
Lisa worked for over an hour, her focus absolute. She adjusted frequencies, observed the results through magical lenses, and made copious, frantic notes in a script I didn't recognize. Finally, with a sharp crackle of energy, the crystal went dark, its captured energy spent.
Lisa leaned back, letting out a long, slow breath. "I have it," she said, her voice filled with a mixture of triumph and dread.
She gathered us around the table. "The hymn isn't just a simple corrupting force," she explained, pointing to her complex diagrams. "It's far more insidious. It's an overwrite sequence. It's designed to methodically erase the ley line's 'memory'—its history, its elemental signature—and replace it with a new one, an Abyssal one. If it completes its work, that ley line will no longer nourish the land with the Anemo Archon's blessing; it will pump out Abyssal corruption like a tumor."
"Can you stop it?" I asked, my voice still hoarse.
"Yes," she said, a flicker of fierce confidence in her eyes. "Because the hymn, for all its power, has a fatal flaw. It's not a constant, sustained broadcast. The Lector must maintain the ritual with periodic, concentrated pulses of its own power to anchor the new 'verse' of the song into the ley line's structure." She tapped a specific point on her diagram which showed a recurring dip in the energy readings. "Between these pulses, there is a brief window—perhaps no more than thirty seconds—where the corruption is momentarily 'unanchored'. The song is still playing, but it's not being actively 'saved'. It's a moment of profound vulnerability."
She looked at us, her plan forming. "It's like a blacksmith forging a blade. He heats the metal to a searing glow, strikes it with his hammer to shape it, then must let it cool for a moment before the next strike. We must act during that moment of cooling. I can create a counter-frequency, a purification device. But it must be placed directly onto the ley line nexus, at the heart of the pit, and activated within that thirty-second window. It will create a harmonic resonance that will shatter the Abyssal hymn and purge the corruption before the Lector can anchor it again."
A path to victory. It was a dangerous, needle-thin path, but it existed. Our small group immediately shifted into strategy mode.
Lisa would need time and a list of rare materials to construct the 'Harmonic Resonator', as she called it.
Jean, with her authority and logistical prowess, would be responsible for procuring those materials from the Knights' alchemical stores and various city guilds, doing so discreetly to avoid raising suspicion.
Kaeya and I would have to return to the camp. Our new mission was to conduct sustained surveillance to identify the exact timing and duration of the Lector's 'pulses', mapping out the vulnerable windows.
The final mission would be a full, surgical strike, timed to one of those windows, to fight our way to the nexus and plant Lisa's device.
The path was clear, but daunting.
Later that day, I was finally allowed to return to my room, under strict orders from Lisa to rest. I lay on my bed, the exhaustion a physical entity pressing me down. I checked my System. There was no grand level up, no celebratory notification. Just a few quiet, simple lines of text.
[Mental Fortitude has permanently increased by +5 due to successful resistance against high-level psychic and Abyssal influence.]
[User's latent understanding of non-elemental (Abyssal) magic has increased.]
[Alert: Minor Abyssal resonance detected in vessel's core pathways. Currently dormant and suppressed by host's internal energy. Recommend periodic purity checks.]
The last line sent a chill through me. A part of the Abyss had stuck to me after all, a tiny, dormant splinter. I focused inward, on the warm, golden sun of my Mana Burst. I could feel it now, a steady, protective presence, its light holding the tiny thread of darkness at bay. I realized then that my two powers had indeed worked in tandem. My Anemo Vision, my connection to the world of Teyvat, had allowed me to listen to its pain. But it was the power of the King, the golden light of a Heroic Spirit, that had allowed my soul to survive the experience. The Knight had gathered the intelligence. The King had endured the cost.
There was a soft knock on my door. It was Jean. She held a small scroll in her hand. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Arthur, I know you need to rest," she said, her voice soft. "But this is the preliminary list of materials Lisa needs for the Resonator. Most of it is standard alchemical reagents we can procure easily." She hesitated. "But there's one component she says is absolutely essential for stabilizing the device's purification frequency. A 'Crystal Core'. It's a type of crystal that only forms under immense and constant Anemo pressure."
She looked at me, her expression a mixture of apology and grim resolve. "According to the guild records, the only known accessible location for them is near the very top of the Stormbearer Mountains, in a cave system perpetually battered by high winds."
She didn't need to say the rest. It was a treacherous, difficult-to-reach location. Sending a team would be slow and obvious. But for someone with a mastery of Anemo and an uncanny climbing ability…
"Lisa needs it to save Mondstadt," she said simply.
I smiled, a tired but genuine smile. The respite was over. The next quest had already begun. "Tell her I'll have it by the end of the week."