"Everyone, it's not that we abandoned Mondstadt — Mondstadt abandoned the Lawrence Clan. They never gave us dignity!" Schubert shouted, throwing his hands wide.
"For the Lawrence Clan!" his followers echoed back, some with fervor, some with desperation. Most of them were exhausted by poverty and humiliation. They had convinced themselves they had nothing left to lose. If Mondstadt would not give them a future, they would take one by force.
The Lawrence estate that had once been the image of noble grandeur now smelled of dust and mildew. The chandeliers hung crookedly; curtains were moth-eaten. The family's pride remained — shriveled, stubborn, and dangerous.
BANG — the door was kicked open. A pale leg stepped inside first, then the rest of her: Eula. Her expression was ice; in her grip glinted the family claymore, Song of Broken Pines. She moved like a blade given form, deliberate and cold.
Every head in the room snapped to her. The sword had a reputation: old, terrible, and bound up with the Lawrence name. Eula was the first in generations to be acknowledged by it. She was the clan's strongest descendant — and now she stood between Schubert and his dream.
"What are you planning?" she demanded, voice low and hard as stone.
"Eula, you know how it is," Schubert shot back, trying to mask panic with bravado. "Join us. When the Abyss crushes Barbatos, Mondstadt will fall. Then you — you'll take what you deserve. Jean will be replaced; the Knights will bow to us."
Eula's eyes narrowed. "You would sell our people to the Abyss to regain your pride? Do you realize what that means? The rest of Teyvat will never forgive the Lawrence name again."
Her voice softened in a way that chilled the room. "If the clan is to survive, I will do it on my terms."
Schubert laughed — a brittle, unbelieving sound. "What are you going to do, Eula? Kill us? Break your own blood?"
She didn't answer. She acted. The Song of Broken Pines swept in a single, terrible arc; the blade found the nearest extremist in the foyer. He never reached for his weapon. One clean stroke, one collapse. The room inhaled as if the gravity of her act had physically pushed the air out.
They looked at her, stunned.
Why would she betray her blood? Had she been turned?
Schubert's composure cracked. He slammed a hand on a device nearby: a crude generator bristling with geo-etched components. Geo energy thrummed through the air and opened a shimmer — a spatial rift. The plan had been set in motion; there was no turning back.
Eula's face was unreadable. In her mind, she had already weighed the cost. Barbatos had planned this: let the extremists act, expose the traitors, force the clan's worst to the surface so they could be cut out before the whole family was burned. If the Lawrence name had to be stained to be cleansed, she would do it herself. She did not relish the thought — but she accepted the necessity.
From the rift stepped a Herald of the Abyss — tall, cruel, radiating a chill that made the candles gutter. Behind the Herald, an endless tide of abyssal creatures pushed through: Abyss Mages, corrupted husks, and malformed beasts spilling into the chamber like a black tide.
"Your Excellency," Schubert breathed as if greeting a savior. "We will seize Mondstadt."
The Herald's contempt was immediate and cold. He looked at Schubert like one inspects spoiled fruit. "You are late," he said flatly. "His Highness grows impatient."
Schubert blinked. He had been treated kindly before; why the harshness now? He had arranged everything — or so he thought.
"You were a tool," the Herald said. It was not a question.
Schubert's face went pale. He had been expendable the moment the gate opened.
Eula's lips pressed into a thin line. She stepped forward. "You don't belong to anyone," she told Schubert. "You've made your choice."
"You — you traitor!" Schubert shouted, but the Portal's tide had already begun to surge.
A voice cut through like ice: "I'll handle this."
Diluc stepped into the doorway, Wolf's Gravestone slung over his shoulder, a cold, lethal calm about him. He didn't hesitate.
Eula watched him for a beat. Could he handle it? The Abyss Herald was elite — not an ordinary boss fight to be shrugged off. She had fought Heralds' ilk before; they were brutal, cunning, and backed by abyssal reserves. But Diluc did not tremble.
"Hydro," he said — quiet, precise. "I'll take the Herald."
The Herald laughed, low and feral. "You think your sword can stop me?" He moved like cold water made weapon; his attacks were quick and corrosive, aimed to fracture rhythm and stamina.
The portal poured forth enemies in waves — hilichurls warped by abyssal influence, Abyss Mages who unleashed corroding spells, and grotesque constructs that clicked and howled.
Diluc advanced like a storm. Each swing of Wolf's Gravestone cleaved a path, Hydro-flame mixing and carving through the mass. He fought with the efficiency of a veteran who had trained on harder ground than any of them. The Herald snarled and met him blow for blow: Corrosive shards of abyssal frost met searing embers, lightning-quick feints answered with brutal counters.
Eula moved through the Lawrence traitors with surgical precision. She struck down the loudest voices first: the ones who would have plagued the clan and the city the longest. She made sure every death was focused; every swing minimized collateral harm to innocents. For Eula, it was a bitter calculus — one she had chosen to carry.
The Herald turned his attention to Diluc. The two clashed in the foyer, and for a moment the battle between Archon-level influences and abyssal corruption felt like a war in miniature. The Herald's presence pulsed like frost. Diluc's blade burned like a furnace. Each hit diluted the other.
Outside the Estate: Mondstadt erupted into full-scale combat. Stormterror's shadow had retreated after Barbatos intercepted him for now, but the Abyss had already sent an army. Monsters sprang from portals across the outskirts. Waves assaulted the gates, crashed through side streets, and swarmed over defenders.
Jean rallied the Knights of Favonius like a living wall. Amber and Kaeya flanked her, arrows and ice deftly placed to hold corridors. Lisa's elegiac lightning sang through the air; her spells bent the battlefield to her will. The Church of Favonius and the Adventurers' Guild sent squads — independent Vision wielders, mercenaries, and townsfolk bound by fear and stubborn courage — all pitched into the fray.
Noelle, ever the bulwark, anchored flank defenses; Fischl called forth Oz to shred foes from a distance; Diona darted among wounded to patch them up. Rosaria and Sucrose provided agile, surgical strikes and crowd control. Bennett, enthusiastic to a fault, pushed into the thick of it despite the danger.
Even some Fatui agents had to fight; their livelihoods hinged on survival, and Rosalyne's petrified statue at the gate complicated their position. They could not simply flee. For the Fatui, stability — even a ruined one — was preferable to exposure.
Back inside the Lawrence estate, the Herald's contempt hardened into fury as Diluc began to find the Herald's rhythm. The Herald roared and shifted tactics, calling in more abyssal reinforcements. Diluc gritted his teeth and pushed back — every inch costly, every parry drawing on reserves of grit and fury. The Herald fought like a creature born of night and water, ruthless and patient.
Eula, her hands stained and breathing steady, finished dealing with the Lawrence extremists. She turned to help Diluc where she could, and the two of them began to coordinate: light and shadow, blade and counter-blow. Their synergy was not practiced together, but it fit — a testament to two warriors who knew how to carry the burden alone and when to stand together.
Meanwhile, Kael watched from the cathedral roof. He could see the city's grid of battle: pockets of hope and dark holes where the Abyss advanced. The rift generator Schubert used — the hole in the wall Schubert exploited to bring agents in and out — had been opened. Even now, more rifts would fracture the area unless sealed.
Kael's mind worked in cold, efficient angles. This was the Abyss' playbook: sow corruption, distract the Archons, then punch through when defenses frayed. But the Abyss had underestimated Mondstadt's will and the unpredictable alliances rising in its defense. They had expected a quick collapse; instead they had stirred resistance.
Winds screamed overhead as Barbatos — Venti — danced against Dvalin again, trying to keep the dragon's fury away from the city. The people's voices rose and fell like a chorus, prayers braided with the clang of battle. For the city's citizens, Barbatos' return was a bright flare of hope; for the Abyss, it was a complication.
As the daylight bent toward evening and the battle's tempo increased, Kael sent a sharp instruction through the makeshift comms the group had cobbled together: seal the open rifts where possible, converge on generator nodes, and funnel reinforcements to the Eastern Gate. Jean acknowledged and redirected squadrons. Diluc, between strikes, nodded in agreement; Eula carved a path so soldiers could reach the rift machinery and attempt to tear it down.
In the Lawrence estate foyer, the Herald realized the portal's point-guarding advantage was slipping: enemies from two directions threatened flank and supply. There was a moment of calculation in the Herald's eyes — then a furious, grinding retreat as Diluc's blade found a true opening. The Herald staggered.
"Pull back!" it hissed, voice like cracking ice. "Reform the gate!"
But orders spilled out too slowly into the abyssal tide; the portal's feed was being obstructed — human hands with hammers, Knights with axes and Geo sigils breaking the machines, working in a coordinated effort Jean and Kael had seeded over the last hours.
Schubert, seeing the tide turn and the Herald's patience fray, turned to flee — but Eula blocked him. There was no movement left for his ambition. With a final look at the ruined plans and the men who'd followed him, Schubert understood what his treason had cost his name. There was no salvation.
Outside, the main drag of Mondstadt burned with the concentrated violence of a city given no choice but to fight for its life. Kael stood at the edge of the cathedral roof and felt the weight of history pressing down: the Abyss' shadow had reached in, and now Mondstadt, small and stubborn, pushed back. The outcome was uncertain. The cost would be high.
But in the moment — in the cries and the clashing — the city moved as one. Knights, churchfolk, adventurers, Vision bearers, and mercenaries bled and held. The Knights' banners still flew. Jean stood like a rock in the center, calling lines and saving the weak. Diluc and Eula were a pair of steel-lashed counters that cut true. Venti — Barbatos — wove wind around wounds and hearts, buying time with a god's patience.
The Abyss had come; Mondstadt answered.
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