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Chapter 4 — The Divergence Tear
When Silas stepped into the anomaly, the world did not warp gently—it collapsed.
The Song around him convulsed, bending into impossible chords. Color smeared across darkness. The pressure of the Depths vanished, replaced by a roaring emptiness that tore at his senses. His body felt weightless, then unbearably heavy, then nothing at all.
He wasn't traveling.
He was being rewritten.
A Divergence Tear was not a portal.
It was a misalignment of existence—worlds brushing for a fraction of a fraction of a second.
And Silas, forced into its path, was dragged between melodies that violently rejected him.
The Song inside him—the resonance Yún'Shul had imprinted—flared like dying embers.
That flame was the only reason he didn't disintegrate.
Light split open beneath him.
Wind slammed into his face.
And then—
Silas crashed through foliage and hit the ground hard enough to crack stone.
He wheezed and pushed himself up on trembling arms, coughing dust from his lungs.
The Depths were gone.
The air was warm.
The sky was blue—too blue.
A sun hung above him, bright and clean, unfiltered by ash or storm haze.
Green climbed every hill around him.
No corruption.
No distorted gravity.
No drifting soul wisps.
This place was wrong.
This world was alive.
Silas rose to his feet, breath shaking. His body was intact, but the Song inside him was thrumming violently—trying to adapt, trying to stabilize in a world whose rhythm was not meant for him.
He reached for his weapon on instinct.
A rustle came from the bushes.
Silas tensed.
A creature emerged—small, round, glowing faintly with elemental energy. It looked like a bouncing onion with too much personality.
A Dendro Slime.
It hopped once.
Silas stared at it.
"…You're kidding."
The slime quivered—then lunged.
Silas moved faster.
One step, one swing, one clean arc of steel—
The thing popped like a fruit striking pavement, spraying harmless residue across the grass.
He exhaled, shaking his head. "If that's the wildlife here, I'll manage."
But then he felt it—a ripple.
Not hostile.
Not monstrous.
Familiar.
A thread of Song—her Song—faint, but present.
Alice.
Silas's breath caught in his throat. The residue of the Dendro creature still clung to his boots, but he didn't hesitate. He turned toward the distant city rising on the cliffs, the giant golden tree at its heart glowing like a lantern.
A place humming faintly with elemental essence.
Mondstadt.
Alice had been here.
The Divergence Tear had pulled him toward her trace.
The Song inside him aligned, pointing like a compass.
But as Silas took his first steps toward the city, the world reacted.
Wind gathered—not natural wind, but wind with intention.
Fragments of Anemo swirled, condensing into a fragile shape.
A small spirit—an Anemo wisp—floated before him, observing him with curious, gentle weightlessness.
It drifted around him in a circle.
Then it trembled.
Silas froze.
The spirit wasn't curious.
It was afraid.
Not of him—
Of the Song embedded in him, the raw imprint of Yún'Shul's Primordial presence, leaking through his body like heat through a wound.
This world felt it.
This world recognized it.
The wisp shuddered once more before dissolving into harmless wind.
Silas watched it vanish, jaw tightening.
"So this place can sense me. Great."
He looked again toward Mondstadt, the windmills turning lazily in the breeze.
Somewhere in that world of gods and visions—
the woman who had turned his life upside down was walking under the same sky.
Alive.
Laughing.
Unaware he was even here.
Silas set his jaw and started forward.
He had crossed worlds for her.
Now, nothing in Teyvat would keep them apart.
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