"Undying…"
Aether's hand closed instinctively, gripping the Totem of Undying tighter.
His eyes moved over it with uncertain wonder, probing, searching, as though if he looked long enough, it might give up its secrets.
Ryen smiled at the sight and didn't elaborate.
It had been a long time since the first Totem of Undying had come into the world. Three Totem farms had since been established. Daily production ran into the thousands.
The item had been distributed throughout the settled military forces, every soldier had one, with enough left over to use during recreational mode.
And yet none of that made the Totem of Undying commonplace.
It remained, of all the items in the MC World, the one that best embodied what this world was, the one artifact that could not be substituted or surpassed. Even as extraordinary mods had proliferated, Witchery, draw blade, and other supremely powerful additions, the Totem of Undying held its position alone at the apex.
Even Ryen's own Temporal Stasis staff could not match what the Totem represented.
No matter how many mods entered the picture, the Totem of Undying would always remain the MC World's most irreplaceable, most definitive instrument of power.
And every single person who encountered it for the first time reacted in a way that was, without fail, startlingly similar.
Watching Aether clutch the Totem with both hands like a man who had just been handed his most precious possession,
Ryen felt something nostalgic stir in him.
Since everyone had grown so familiar with the MC World, building up their knowledge and mastering its properties, the sense of wonder had become somewhat dulled. No one still responded with that unbridled delight at every blade of grass and falling leaf, the way they once had.
In plain terms: ordinary things no longer had the power to move them.
But watching Aether right now, Ryen caught a faint echo of how things had been at the very beginning.
Back then, the enthusiasm everyone had felt toward the Totem of Undying had been beyond description. Even Zhongli, receiving his first Totem, had treated it like a sacred object, fashioned it into a necklace and worn it against his skin, not removing it even to sleep, terrified of accidentally losing it somewhere.
And now?
He had four or five strapped to his waist.
Everyone had lost that first, unclouded sense of wonder.
Ryen exhaled a rather wistful sigh.
Seeing Aether still unresponsive, Ryen gave him a nudge back to the present.
"Stop staring. You won't puzzle anything out just by looking. The Totem of Undying has exactly one effect."
"No matter what kind of damage it is, so long as it isn't death from natural old age, it will forcibly negate that death once. That is where the name comes from."
"Items like this, that work against all reason, there are many more of them in that world. The Resurrection Totem, the Master Staff, the draw blade…"
"Let's go."
Ryen rose, and gave Cyno and the others a nod.
"Get your forces settled in. Rest time is just about over, it's time to start making arrangements."
No one said much. Aether, still somewhat struck speechless by the Totem, forced his attention back and tucked it securely against his body.
He fell in with the group as they headed out.
The Sumeru soldiers had a reasonable idea of where they were headed and what work awaited them. When Ryen opened the portal, there were some quiet exclamations, but no disruption. Everyone filed into the MC World in orderly silence.
Ryen had opened the portal directly at Liyue Base One. When the group arrived, the Millelith garrison had already come out to receive them.
Leading them was Fengyan. Dashi had gone to the Twilight Forest, the Millelith in the Overworld fell under Fengyan's direction in his absence.
Seeing Ryen and the others approach, Fengyan moved forward quickly.
"Ryen, the personnel are ready. Shall we begin training immediately?"
It had been some time since the last visit, and the base had expanded again.
Hundreds of dragons roamed at leisure in the enormous fenced enclosure. Beside it, armored warhorses stood in their stalls. The buildings inside the base no longer resembled the old stone matchboxes arranged in rows, every structure had grown upward. Looking at it as a whole, if you didn't know it was a military installation, you might have taken it for some new and remarkable city.
This strange, astonishing place had every Sumeru soldier staring wide-eyed, afraid to blink and miss something.
At Fengyan's question, Ryen waved a hand and looked toward Cyno and Rahim.
"Coordinate with Fengyan directly. First batch, fifteen hundred Sumeru soldiers, which is a respectable number."
"Consult him on his recommendations and tailor the training accordingly."
"Fifteen hundred isn't small. Push hard enough, and you can have multiple dimensional worlds opening up at the same time."
"We'll head back to the villa. When you're done here, come find us, Fengyan knows the way."
Cyno gave a quiet nod. Despite being intensely curious about every single thing in this world, the block-nature of every plant and tree around him, the extraordinary strength surging through his body that hadn't been there before, now was not the moment to pursue any of it.
The most pressing task was getting the troops oriented and working.
Alhaitham had briefed him.
The armies of the other four nations had fully established themselves in the Overworld and were sending their elites into the other three dimensional worlds to strip them clean.
Sumeru was behind. Significantly.
The Lantern Rite grand tournament was also coming. Sumeru wasn't hoping for a great result, but they needed to participate at the very least, rather than standing on the sidelines watching.
Seeing Cyno and Fengyan already deep in discussion, Ryen's group didn't linger. They turned and headed toward the villa.
Aether trailed along behind in a somewhat dazed state, his eyes sweeping across everything in this world, one hand drifting to his Totem every few moments to confirm that he wasn't dreaming.
Lumine glanced at him sideways. For once, she didn't start anything.
"Well? Is it different from every other world we've traveled through?"
Aether gave a subdued nod. After a long silence, he said in a low voice:
"This place feels completely unreal. Like… a game world…"
"Nothing here follows cause and effect. Nothing follows reason. As far as I know, it isn't like any world within the Tree-and-Sea universe."
Walking ahead with Ganyu and the others, Ryen caught those words and raised an eyebrow. A quietly meaningful smile passed over his face.
Out of everyone who had come through, Aether was the first to say this place felt like a game world.
A traveler, after all. There was something to him.
"How to describe it…"
Aether's expression shifted between complexity and bewilderment. He closed his fist and felt the extraordinary strength moving through him.
"The rules, all of them have been broken. This place doesn't obey the laws of the Tree-and-Sea universe."
"The laws here seem to occupy the same supreme position as the most fundamental laws of the Tree-and-Sea cosmos itself."
"Is this… another Tree-and-Sea universe entirely?"
Lumine waved a hand with a grin.
"None of that matters right now. What matters is, do you understand now why Ryen isn't the slightest bit worried about your entire Abyss Order coming in here and threatening his control?"
"What do you mean?"
Aether looked at his sister with mild confusion. She rolled her eyes.
"Ryen, cancel Aether's constitution share!"
Ryen didn't even turn around. He snapped his fingers.
In the next instant, the extraordinary power surging through Aether's body vanished like a reflection in shattered water.
Aether's expression changed completely. He stared at Lumine in disbelief.
She reached back and tossed him a golden sword.
Aether caught it on instinct, and the moment it landed in his hand, the sheer weight of it nearly pulled his arm from its socket.
He threw every ounce of his remaining strength into holding it up, face flushing crimson with the effort.
He could barely move.
He tried to call on his elemental power to compensate, but his elemental power had been suppressed to the point of uselessness. What he could summon barely reached the level of an ordinary Vision user.
An unprecedented weakness overtook him, like the moment right after the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles' seal had first been broken.
"Oops!"
Lumine's expression was the picture of gleeful malice.
"Forgot to mention, that sword is about twenty-something tons!"
"…"
Aether ground his teeth. He looked at the face in front of him, and every single cell in his body screamed at him to reach out and smack it.
Who said his insufferable little sister had changed?
She was exactly the same.
"Alright, alright, Ryen, turn it back on, he's about to suffocate!"
Lumine called out with a cheerful laugh. In the next instant, that indescribable power flooded back to where it belonged.
The sword in Aether's hand became weightless again.
"Do you understand now?"
Lumine walked beside Aether, hands clasped behind her back, and said quietly:
"In this world that doesn't follow the rules, the weight of everything is terrifying and defies all logic."
"A sword weighs over twenty tons. A golden apple is close to a hundred tons."
"A bucket of milk, four or five tons."
"In this world, to live like a normal person, to work and function the way you would in Teyvat, "
"You are completely dependent on Ryen's constitution share. That is one quarter of his strength. Only with that power can you actually move and act in this world."
"Tens of thousands in your Abyss Order? Without Ryen's constitution share, a few thousand zombies would be enough to wipe you all out."
"So. Ryen's world cannot be influenced by anyone else."
"No matter how many of you there are, you still answer to Ryen. Behave yourself, big brother, you really don't want to find out how many cards he's holding."
Aether shot her a look and said flatly:
"Are you not well? When did I ever say I had designs on Ryen's world? Do you think I'm like you? Have some respect, calling me 'big brother' and treating me like a child in the same breath."
"Hah! I really regret it now. Why didn't I bring a few hundred zombies and drop them into your Abyss Order's territory back then?"
Lumine gave a cold snort, took two and a half deliberate strides past him, and fell into step beside Ryen.
Aether curled his lip and let his gaze drift away from her.
He looked at his own hand again, confirming that the surging power was still there.
He understood now. He understood why Ryen moved through the world with complete, unrestrained confidence. Why he had shattered space with a single punch the last time they had met.
This power,
It genuinely did not follow the rules.
Even with his experience, Aether had no idea how strong this one-quarter constitution share truly was. Let alone what Ryen's full constitution felt like.
From where he stood right now: if he could bring this one-quarter share back to Teyvat with him,
The Heavenly Principles?
One punch.
No wonder Zhongli and the others had always moved with such absolute confidence. Even now, with no certain means of suppressing the Heavenly Principles, they had never shown one moment of genuine worry.
Standing rooted in this world, they had both an avenue of advance and a place to fall back to. The Heavenly Principles already had no power over them.
Something wistful moved through Aether.
If only Ryen had been here five hundred years ago.
Khaenri'ah might never have fallen.
Rooted in this world for five hundred years, what they could have become was beyond imagining.
But it wasn't too late now. He had signed the contract. That much was settled.
Khaenri'ah could be restored here.
And grounded in the MC World's extraordinary, defiant nature, Aether was certain, completely, unreservedly certain:
The new Khaenri'ah would rise to a glory that no one in this universe had ever dared to dream of.