The darkness of the abandoned mine was a physical entity. It was a thick, cloying blackness that swallowed the faint light of the glowing crystals in the walls, a silence so profound it felt like a pressure against my eardrums. The air was stale, heavy with the scent of wet stone, decay, and a faint, metallic bitterness that clung to the back of my throat. The tattered miner's map was my only guide, a fragile promise of a world of light and open skies.
My journey through the earth's guts was a slow, agonizing crawl. Time lost all meaning, measured only by the dwindling of my rations and the growing intensity of the ache in my bones. The mine was a treacherous, broken thing. I navigated around collapsed tunnels where the earth had reclaimed its own, the splintered remains of massive support beams a testament to the cataclysm that had silenced this place. I leaped over black, bottomless chasms that split the path, my body, guided by Eternal Arms Mastery, moving with a desperate, precise grace my own exhaustion could not comprehend.
But the true battle was not against the physical dangers of the mine. It was against the enemy within. The stagnant, oppressive atmosphere of this place, steeped in the memory of the "dark malady" the miners had written of, seemed to resonate with the Abyssal Taint in my soul. The faint, intrusive whispers I'd heard in the canyon grew louder here, more insidious.
So tired, they would hiss in the moments my focus wavered. Just rest. It would be so easy to lie down. No one would ever find you. The pain would end.
I saw things. A flicker of a shadowy tendril in the corner of my eye. The glint of a malevolent red eye in the distant darkness that would vanish when I turned. They were hallucinations, born of my feverish state and the Abyssal corruption, but they felt terrifyingly real. I fought back with the only weapons I had: memory and will. I recited the Knights' Code until my throat was raw. I pictured Jean's determined face, Eula's proud glare, Kaeya's cunning smile. I focused on the memory of the golden fire in my palm. These things were my reality, my anchor against the encroaching madness.
After what felt like an eternity of this grueling, subterranean pilgrimage, I felt it. A change in the air. A faint, almost imperceptible current of moving air, carrying the scent of pine and clean, cold stone. A breeze. Hope, so powerful it almost brought me to my knees, surged through me. I was close.
The map led me to a massive rockfall that completely blocked a wide tunnel. But the breeze was coming from a small crack near the ceiling. The emergency exit. It was my only way out.
Summoning the last reserves of my strength, I began to climb. I used my pickaxe to chip away at the rock, creating handholds. I pulled myself up, my muscles screaming, my vision swimming with black spots. My body was a ruin, held together only by sheer, stubborn determination. I squeezed through the narrow opening, scraping my back and shoulders on the sharp rock, and then I was falling, tumbling a few feet down onto soft grass.
The sensory shock was cataclysmic.
After an age in the stale, silent darkness, my senses were assaulted by the sheer, overwhelming reality of the surface world. The sunlight was a blinding, physical blow, making me cry out in pain. The air, crisp, clean, and impossibly fresh, was a balm to my burning lungs. The world was a riot of color—the deep green of pine trees, the impossible blue of the sky, the pristine white of clouds.
I pushed myself to my feet, trembling, and looked out. I was standing on a high mountain pass. Below me, a sea of clouds roiled and churned, obscuring the world beneath. Soaring, majestic peaks, their slopes dotted with strange, amber-colored trees, surrounded me on all sides. It was a view of breathtaking, inhuman beauty. I had made it. I was out.
I took one deep, ragged breath of the clean, sweet air.
And then, my body, which had been held together by nothing but adrenaline and desperate will, finally presented its bill. The release of tension, the sudden shock of the open world, and the full, aggravated weight of my injuries and the Abyssin Taint all crashed down on me at once. A wave of vertigo washed over me. My vision tunneled to a single point of light. My legs buckled, and the world dissolved into a soft, welcoming darkness. My last sensation was the feeling of cool, damp grass against my cheek.
My return to consciousness was slow, a gentle ascent from a deep, dreamless ocean. The first thing I registered was the absence of pain. The grinding, screaming agony that had been my constant companion was gone, replaced by a clean, cool numbness that felt profoundly peaceful. The second thing was the air. It was pure, carrying the delicate, sweet scent of what I recognized from the game's lore as Glaze Lilies, mingled with the crisp fragrance of mountain mist.
I opened my eyes.
I was not in a cave, nor a house. I was in a place that defied simple description. It seemed to be an open-air abode, carved from a single, impossibly large piece of luminous, pale-green jade. Intricate, glowing blue mechanisms, reminiscent of ancient, advanced technology, hummed gently around the perimeter. I was lying on a soft, silken mat, looking up at a sky filled with a sea of clouds. The entire dwelling seemed to be floating, an island of serenity in the heavens.
Two figures stood nearby. One was a young woman, her long, silver-white hair braided with a striking red rope. She was dressed in an elegant, form-fitting bodysuit of white, black, and blue. Her expression was cold and distant, almost emotionless, but her pale, ice-blue eyes watched me with an unnerving, piercing intensity.
The other figure commanded the space with an aura of ancient, unassailable authority. She had the appearance of a tall, elegant woman with long, black hair and sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of millennia. She wore magnificent, ornate robes, and a pair of delicate, red-rimmed glasses were perched on her nose. The air around her shimmered with a power that was neither elemental nor abyssal, but something far older, far more fundamental.
I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that I was in the presence of an Adeptus. And not just any Adeptus. This was the dwelling of the Cloud Retainer.
I tried to sit up, my body feeling strangely light and whole.
"Lie still, child." The Adeptus's voice was like the chiming of jade wind bells, yet it carried an edge of steel and an absolute, unquestionable authority. "Your physical wounds are mended. One has repaired the fractures and stitched the flesh. A simple matter. Your other afflictions, however, are far more… intriguing."
My blood ran cold. She knew.
The younger woman, Shenhe, I realized with a jolt, spoke for the first time. Her voice was a low, soft monotone, almost devoid of inflection. "His energy is a storm. I felt it from the valley below. Pain, wind, a deep fire, and a great cold. Like mine."
The Adeptus, Xianyun, walked closer, her sharp, bird-like eyes narrowing as she studied me, not as a doctor would a patient, but as a master craftsman would an unknown, impossibly complex artifact. "The young one speaks the truth," she declared. "One has rarely seen such a chaotic soul, let alone one contained within a mortal shell that has not yet shattered from the strain."
She held up a long, elegant finger, ticking off her observations. "One: You carry the distinct signature of Barbatos's wind, the mark of a Mondstadt Vision holder. Yet it is faint, damaged, struggling to find purchase in the solid earth of Liyue. Two: You have a deep, dormant power within you, a fire that feels less like Pyro and more like the searing heart of a fallen star. You have used it recently, and foolishly. It has burned your own pathways."
Her gaze became sharper, more penetrating. "And three…" she said, her voice dropping, "...you bear the undeniable, venomous taint of the Abyss. It is a minor infection, but it has taken root deep within your spirit. It is a poison one has not seen in this pure a form for an age."
She leaned down slightly, her ancient, impossibly wise eyes seeming to strip away every one of my secrets, every lie, every carefully constructed wall. The spymaster's deflections, the prodigy's excuses—they were all useless here. I was utterly, completely exposed.
"One has mended your body, but your soul is a riddle of warring impossibilities," she stated, her tone final. "So, one shall ask you directly."
Her eyes locked with mine, and I felt the full weight of her ancient, powerful consciousness pressing down on me.
"Tell me, child. What manner of creature are you?"