The silence was absolute. The ruby bars of the laser light hung motionless in the air, a breath away from Ren's eyes. The dust motes were suspended like stars in a dead galaxy.
Ren blinked, his heart the only thing beating in a frozen universe.
He looked forward. Between him and the frozen, sneering form of Dottore, a figure had appeared. She had not walked there, nor teleported with a flash of elemental energy. It was as if she had always been standing there, and the universe had simply just realized it.
She floated inches above the misty ground, her bare feet pointing downward. Her dress was a flowing tapestry of white and gold, trailing behind her like a comet's tail, revealing glimpses of a starry blue beneath. Two massive, golden rings rotated slowly, majestically behind her back, adorned with hanging ornaments that looked like the weights of a grandfather clock.
But it was her eyes that stole the breath from Ren's lungs. They were golden, but where the iris should be, there were clock faces, devoid of hands, ticking silently in a time that did not exist.
Istaroth. The God of Moments. The Thousand Winds. One of the Four Shades.
She did not look at Dottore. She simply raised a hand, her pale blue glove glowing with a soft, white light. She waved it, a casual, dismissive gesture, like brushing away a cobweb.
The reality of the nightmare unspooled.
The frozen lasers dissolved into mist. The younger Dottore, his arrogance frozen on his masked face, flickered like a dying candle and then simply… ceased to be. The floating needles, the contraption, the oppressive heat—gone.
And behind her, the roaring, black inferno consuming the Irminsul vanished. The charred bark, the falling ash, the screaming red data streams—all of it evaporated in an instant, revealing the World Tree standing white, pristine, and untouched, as if the fire had never existed at all.
It was as if an illusion had been lifted, or perhaps, a timeline had been gently, firmly, corrected.
Istaroth turned. Her handless clock-eyes focused on Ren. The gaze was not heavy like the Shogun's, nor warm like Nahida's. It was vast. It felt like being looked at by history itself.
"The Anomaly," she spoke. Her voice was not a simple sound wave; it was a resonance in his soul, echoing with the same timber as the voice in the void, yet distinct. "Your presence in this world… it is a stone thrown into a still pond. The ripples have already diverted the river of fate into a new, uncharted bed."
She floated closer, the golden rings behind her spinning with a rhythmic, hypnotic grace.
"You should understand," she continued, her expression unreadable, "that every action you take carries weight. You touch the past, and the future shudders. You change the present, and the past rewrites itself. By all the laws of Teyvat, your existence should have been rejected. The world should have purged you as a foreign body."
She tilted her head, her white hair drifting as if underwater. "And yet… you remain. You persist. Because a shred of your past exists here. A thread, thin and frayed, links you to the loom of this world."
Ren's mind reeled. My past? The boy in the mirror? The experiment?
"You must uncover it," Istaroth commanded, her voice gaining a layer of urgent gravity. "You must find the truth of your own history. Use it. Wield it against the encroaching dark. You must stabilize the future you are so carelessly, and so beautifully, rewriting."
She reached out. Her finger, glowing with the light of a thousand moments, touched the center of his forehead.
"Otherwise," she whispered, the sound like the final grain of sand falling in an hourglass, "you will destroy this world. And everything will be for naught."
A warmth flooded him. It wasn't elemental energy. It wasn't the raw power of a Gnosis or the chill of Cryo. It was a sensation of… solidity. Of being anchored. The exhaustion that had been eating his bones vanished, replaced by a clear, sharp vitality. A soft, white glow enveloped him for a second, then sank into his skin.
"Go now," she said. "The moment ends."
She blinked.
And she was gone.
The world snapped back into motion.
Ren stumbled, his balance thrown off by the sudden return of time. He gasped, sucking in a lungful of cool, clean air.
Behind him, Nahida let out a confused sound. "What…?"
She was standing with her hands outstretched towards the Irminsul, glowing with healing energy. But there was nothing to heal. The tree stood tall and healthy, its leaves glowing with a soft, pink light, the data streams flowing peacefully around it. There was no fire. No corruption.
She spun around, her eyes wide with bewilderment. "The fire… the Doctor… where did they go? I was just… the corruption was resisting me, and then…"
She looked at Ren, seeing him standing there, unharmed, Dottore nowhere to be seen. "Ren? What happened?"
Ren lowered his hands, looking at his palms. The tremors were gone. The pain of the elemental backlash was gone. He felt… whole.
He looked at the God of Wisdom. She deserved the truth. Or at least, as much of it as he could give.
"It wasn't real," Ren said, his voice steady. "Or… it was made unreal."
He walked over to her. "Istaroth," he whispered the name, the weight of it settling around them. "The Ruler of Time. She was here."
Nahida's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Time? Herself?"
Ren nodded. "She intervened. She waved her hand, and Dottore… the fire… it all just vanished. She said… she said my past links me to this world."
Nahida looked from Ren to the pristine tree. Her mind, the fastest processor in Teyvat, began to connect the impossible dots.
"So that is why," she murmured, a dawn of realization breaking across her face. "That is why I felt no pain. The Irminsul is my body. If it were truly burning, I would have been in agony. But I felt… nothing. Just resistance."
She looked at the tree, her gaze analytical. "Illusions. Or perhaps… a potential future that was overwritten before it could become concrete reality. Dottore… he was playing a game with perception. But to fool the God of Wisdom in her own sanctuary…"
She shuddered. "He is unhinged more than dangerous. But for the Ruler of Time to intervene… Ren, you are more important to the fate of this world than even I calculated."
She looked him over, checking for injuries. "Are you feeling well? You look winded up, are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," Ren said, and he meant it. "She did something to me. I feel… good. Strong."
He looked around the peaceful, pink void of the consciousness space. The threat here was gone. But outside, in the waking world, the battle still raged.
"Lumine," Ren said, urgency returning to his voice.
Nahida nodded, her expression hardening. "Yes. The Balladeer. We must return. We have questions to answer, and a false god to dethrone."
She offered him her hand again. "Let us go back. We can discuss about Time later. Right now, our friend needs us."
Ren took her hand. The mist of the dreamscape swirled around them, and the peaceful vision of the World Tree faded, replaced by the anticipation of the battle that awaited them in the realm of mortals.