Like a dragon playing with a pearl—
The Geo dragon surged with a devouring, world-swallowing momentum and slammed into the falling core.
Boom!
Terrifying energy exploded outward.
The light was so bright no one could keep their eyes open.
Paimon grabbed Lumine's hair again to keep from getting blown away.
"So strong…" Noelle whispered.
As a Geo user herself, she could feel it more clearly than anyone—just how absurd that attack truly was.
No wonder Mondstadt's uncrowned king—Master Diluc—was willing to act with Kaito.
No wonder he always let Kaito make the calls.
Someone as proud as Diluc… would still have to lower his stance in front of Kaito.
"Mm-hmm! That was so cool!" Barbara's focus was different.
Her crystal-blue eyes sparkled with worship.
Lumine clenched her hand. "I'm still… far behind."
Inside the ruin—
The dust began to clear.
The Anemo Hypostasis's core flickered into view at the center of the arena, shaking violently.
Four wind-element orbs drifted out from it.
Then the core turned intangible.
Both elemental damage and physical attacks became useless.
"What is this?" Diluc asked, baffled.
This didn't look like the Electro Hypostasis at all. It wasn't splitting into smaller cores.
"Do you feel the difference between these wind orbs," Kaito asked casually, "and the ones it produced after Windwail Moon's Pull?"
Diluc paused and sensed carefully. Then he hesitated. "Vitality?"
The orbs produced after Windwail Moon's Pull had been pure energy.
These four… were filled with something alive.
"Correct," Kaito said.
"'Hypostasis' means it has discarded the forms and ecology of other elemental life, reaching a pure state. For this kind of higher elemental lifeform, the key is the last word—life."
"We've worn down the wind element surrounding it. So this is what's left."
"It's the same idea as the Electro Hypostasis," Kaito continued. "At the last moment, it wants to use this to absorb ambient element and recover its fighting power."
"Then we have to destroy them," Diluc said, ready to move.
Last time, once they destroyed the three split electro cores, the Electro Hypostasis disappeared completely.
So breaking these four wind orbs should finish it—
Then he caught himself.
Something felt wrong.
Why did Kaito look so unhurried?
"But if we don't, it'll absorb wind and recover—"
Diluc's voice stopped mid-sentence.
He finally realized the problem.
In this ruin now—
Where was it supposed to find wind to absorb?
Kaito's domineering Geo strike had dispersed it all.
Even now, thick Geo energy still lingered in the air.
"I see."
After a moment, the intangible core pulled those four vitality-filled wind orbs back into itself.
But it gained none of the wind element it expected.
The core simply sagged there, exhausted—no energy left to sustain its function.
Kaito walked up.
Wolf's Gravestone pierced straight through it.
The Anemo Hypostasis's vitality drained rapidly. With a final pop, it shattered into fragments—shards sinking into the ruin like scattered glass.
The ruin seemed to awaken again, its patterns lighting up.
The ground shook once more.
Noelle and the others rushed in, regrouping and going on alert.
"Kaito! Windwail Highland is way too dangerous!" Paimon cried out. "It's another earthquake!"
Kaito shook his head, wearing that gentle, sunny smile. "It's what I promised Lumine."
"Mine?" Lumine asked, stunned.
"Oh, right!" Paimon suddenly remembered. "Why didn't we get any ley-line energy?"
"It's coming," Kaito said.
As his words fell, the ruin's glow dimmed.
Not far away, the ground split—
And a teal Ley Line Blossom pushed up from beneath the earth, bud tightly closed.
They stared at it in shock.
Paimon didn't even dare fly closer.
She was afraid the bud would suddenly open and swallow her whole.
"The ley lines consumed the corpse of a high-level elemental lifeform," Kaito said. "They have to give something back."
He gently nudged Lumine forward. "Go on. Open it."
Lumine glanced back at him.
When she saw his confident nod, she walked up.
She placed her hand on the bud.
Nothing happened.
After a brief pause, she let Anemo gather in her palm.
The Ley Line Blossom sensed it—
And slowly, it bloomed.
Several items dropped from within.
At the same time, a thick surge of ley-line energy poured out of the blossom itself and flooded into Lumine.
She had only just reached Lv.9 over the past few days—
And now her level rocketed.
Lv.10… Lv.11… Lv.12…
Lv.14… Lv.15… Lv.16…
Lv.18… Lv.19… Lv.20.
One petal after another withered.
When Lumine reached Lv.20, the blossom's body completely dried up—empty of all remaining energy.
Lumine opened her eyes.
Her gaze was full of stunned disbelief.
She never imagined the "gift pack" Kaito had prepared could be this overwhelming.
All that effort… all that exhausting combat…
"Kaito."
Kaito was checking the items scattered from the blossom's bud. He turned at her voice—
And the girl in white, golden hair shining—
stepped in close and hugged him tightly.
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