In Liyue Harbor, countless figures silently cleared debris and rubble from the streets, unearthing mangled corpses from beneath. The bodies were then carried away on prepared stretchers. This same scene repeated across the city, the expressions on people's faces numb.
Two days had passed since the collapse of Mt. Tianheng. In those two days, they had lost count of how many bodies they had dug out from the ruins.
At first, the sight of the fragmented remains had sickened them, provoked nausea, rage, and terror. But today, only numbness remained.
The name No. 3 was now seared into the minds of every person in Liyue, much like the fear the people of Fontaine held for Number Six. Of course, there was a difference.
The Fontainians' fear of Number Six stemmed from his psychological manipulation and cruel torture.
The people of Liyue's fear of No. 3, however, was born from her utter contempt for life and her overwhelmingly powerful strength—a strength so absolute that even the Geo Archon could not halt her atrocities.
Even with casualties on this scale, in No. 3's eyes, she had likely done no more than crush some insignificant ants.
What terrified everyone even more was that No. 3 seemed to be preparing to form an army with Heroic Spirits as its main body. Although she had temporarily left, she could return at any time.
Where they should go in the future, no one knew the answer; there was only a sense of confusion about the future.
Leave Liyue and head to other countries for refuge? But were other countries truly safe?
One must know that Liyue was already considered to be among the front ranks of the Seven Nations; if they were in Mondstadt, in case anything happened, they would have no power to resist at all.
Suddenly, a transparent figure appeared among everyone, looking around at the people with a confused expression.
For this kind of situation, everyone present had long since grown used to it.
It seemed that because No. 3 had secretly made some adjustments to her plan for No. 9, No. 9's soul origin did not go to the afterlife as planned, causing the balance between the two worlds to be broken, and the barrier between life and death was constantly weakening.
Moreover, this situation would continuously worsen as the imbalance between the two worlds grew.
Now, one or two souls would suddenly appear from time to time. At first, it scared many people; after all, having ghosts appear in broad daylight was still quite frightening, but later everyone got used to it.
Before long, several Millelith arrived in a hurry, surrounded the soul, questioned it briefly, and then took it to a black vortex floating in the air, letting it return to the world of the dead through the vortex.
These vortices were created when the two worlds collided after losing their balance. Theoretically, they could also allow the living to enter the world of the dead, but so far, no one dared to try.
Even if there was no danger, one might not be able to return after entering.
After all, the souls that appeared did so without any vortexes; clearly, the location one appeared in after going to the other world would be random. In such a situation, who would dare try? Therefore, for now, these vortices were only used to send away those souls that had unexpectedly arrived in this world.
The souls of these ordinary people were the easiest to deal with; even if they were unwilling, they could be forcibly sent away. What was feared were those who had been powerful in life, who could already convert their spiritual energy into a body and live in this world just like normal people.
Because the Millelith referred to them as Heroic Spirits, this term quickly spread among the crowd.
Ordinary methods were no longer enough to deal with these Heroic Spirits; how could they, having finally been given a second life, obediently return to the world of the dead?
But if left unchecked, as the imbalance between the two worlds grows, more and more souls will appear. Even the gods who died in the distant past will—be resurrected. No one can imagine what Teyvat will become then.
Furthermore, judging from the souls dealt with over the past two days, the souls in the World of the Dead seem to come not only from Teyvat itself, but also from other worlds.
There are terrifying enemies in other worlds too. Just like the world where Chen Feng obtained the [ Death Note ]—if those enemies were to come to Teyvat, they would be even harder to deal with than the resurrected gods.
Therefore, in order to buy as much time as possible, the Liyue Qixing have been pulling their hair out over the souls that have been appearing all over Liyue these past two days.
The only thing they are grateful for is that Hu Tao, who inherited Chen Feng's Eyes of Life and Death and the [ Death Note ], can directly crush ordinary [ Heroic Spirits ]. She can send them away without even needing a vortex of wind; the only difficulty is that she needs to see them with her own eyes.
At this stage, the situation can still be barely contained because the imbalance has not yet spread completely outside of Liyue. But as time passes, when other nations experience similar situations to Liyue, the situation will probably spiral completely out of control.
And what Persephone, who had taken Chen Feng's soul essence, planned to do next was also unknown to them, but it was certainly nothing good!
Therefore, they had to find Persephone before that, and then defeat her!
But achieving this was far from easy...
-
Inside the Jade Chamber.
In truth, the Jade Chamber was already half-paralyzed from its previous forced activation. It could only stay on the ground for now, serving as a temporary workplace for the Yuehai Pavilion's administrative staff. Repairing it would not be an easy task.
At this moment, the Liyue Qixing and the Adepti were all sitting around a table, their expressions incredibly grave.
Between them were two new figures—the Liyue Qixing who had been kicked out by Persephone earlier. Now, they had recovered somewhat, and the blank expressions on their faces had faded.
Upon learning the situation, they wished Persephone had looked down on everyone as useless, returning all the other souls in the process. But obviously, that was impossible.
If Persephone had looked down on Chen Feng, she would never have gone to such great lengths to wait for him to step into her trap one step at a time.
They also discussed this later: if Persephone's claims were true and Chen Feng really had no memory of his past, then it must be that Chen Feng had collaborated with Persephone and used her as his safeguard, trusting her to personally tell him about his plan after he lost his memory.
The final result was obvious: Chen Feng had been schemed against by Persephone, whose ambitions went far beyond this.
They still remembered Persephone saying that she wanted to completely destroy this world.
Although that organization's purpose was to save the world, not every Numbered Member acted according to its mission, just like No. 5 and No. 6 from before.
Seeing that everyone had arrived, Ningguang turned her gaze to Mountain Shaper and asked with concern.
"Mountain Shaper, how is your recovery from your injuries coming along?"
"Thank you for your concern, Tianquan. This Adeptus is basically fine now, aside from occasional bouts of dizziness."
At this moment, Mountain Shaper's attitude toward Ningguang was much better than it had been at the beginning. After all, the Adepti had already shared hardships with the Liyue Qixing twice now. After spending this much time together, they had to admit that although Ningguang and Hu Tao were mere mortals, they possessed abilities that earned the respect of all the Adepti.
"Let's set aside my concerns for now. Please, tell us the results of the post-disaster census."
Hearing Mountain Shaper's words, everyone's mood sank. Although Ningguang had not yet shared the specific numbers, they all already had a rough idea.
"In these incidents, the death toll is approximately 330,000, and there are as many as a million injured..."
Hearing this result, everyone present felt a suffocating sensation!
Besides the roughly 60,000 who had died in the previous incidents, the remaining 270,000 deaths and one million injuries were all the work of Persephone!
Persephone had brought unimaginable sorrow to Liyue. Everyone present felt a fire burning in their hearts.
Furthermore, this event had made Zhongli somewhat shut himself off. He had already disappeared again, not appearing before anyone for several days.
After all, those people had met their end right in front of Zhongli. How could he not blame himself?
Of course, the Adepti knew there was another crucial reason: Guizhong had been taken away by Persephone.
To finally reunite with a friend who had been dead for many years, only to fight immediately upon meeting, and then to be taken away again without even a chance to catch up, was a pain that everyone present could empathize with.
Especially Xiao. When he woke up again and learned that his brothers and sisters had been taken away by Persephone, he directly swept away the evil spirits and monsters in more than half of Liyue, the murderous aura on his body being astonishing.
Although Xiao was also attending this meeting at the moment, leaning against a pillar with his eyes closed and holding the Primordial Jade Winged-Spear, he was constantly emitting a terrifying aura from his body.
Everyone present spent a lot of effort to ignore the low pressure on Xiao's side and discuss official business. At this time, Ningguang spoke again.
"At that time, I predicted that Liyue Harbor might be affected by the battle, so I had already let the Millelith evacuate the people to a safe place to take refuge in advance, but many people did not follow the arrangements, and there were even some who actively climbed Mt. Tianheng, thinking it was too far to see the battle clearly."
Hearing Ningguang's words, everyone's lips twitched, and for a moment, they didn't know whether they should feel sad for the deaths of these people.
Though love for a good spectacle is a vile human habit, this is just plain suicidal!
"Also, a new portal to the World of the Dead has appeared today. This time it's in the wilderness of the Guili Plains, an area hardly anyone ever passes through, so the impact is relatively small."
"So far, three such portals have appeared, and there is no sign of them closing. I have ordered the Millelith to seal off the surrounding areas of each one to prevent anyone from accidentally coming into contact with them."
Another piece of bad news. It can be foreseen that the portals will only continue to increase in number, and the souls appearing in this world will become more numerous. When the time comes, just dealing with these souls will leave them physically and mentally exhausted.
Moreover, every new portal requires sealing off the surrounding area. If these portals do not close, it won't be long before there are few places left in Liyue where people can move around freely.
"Is there any news of No. 3?"
Cloud Retainer asked the question she was most concerned about. Persephone was simply too dangerous; if such a being's whereabouts could not be tracked, it would be terrifying.
"Nothing has been found yet. It is possible that No. 3 is currently hiding within Liyue's borders, or perhaps she has already traveled to other nations."
Keqing seemed to say something, but then it seemed she said nothing at all.
"Sigh, I never expected there to be such terrifying enemies in this world. Even during the Archon War, No. 3's strength would have ranked among the top. I truly don't know why we never heard a single word about them before."
Moon Carver sighed and spoke.
"Speaking of which, the appearance of this organization is very abrupt, and the appearance of the Numbered Members is even more of a mystery."
"Yet, if we say they are from outside this world, they still leave traces within it."
This was the strangest part for everyone. Aside from the Numbered Members, all other members had traces of their past lives, but they had truly never heard a single whisper about this faction before.
They had lived for several thousand years, after all. A faction that even they had never heard of, could it have been born at the dawn of Teyvat's creation?
Moreover, before the Archon War, humans were few and weak, the most vulnerable race. If they had not received the protection of the gods, they might not have even survived until the end of the Archon War, so how could so many powerful experts have emerged?
"I have some thoughts on this matter."
Cloud Retainer spoke again.
"As it stands, none of the Numbered Members have any traces of living in the world before. This Adeptus suspects they were created."
"Just as this Adeptus's own strength is only average, but with my Mechanics, I can threaten enemies at the Archon-level."
When saying this, Cloud Retainer's proud expression was plain to see.
"And in Fontaine, even ordinary people have created devastating weapons capable of rivaling a god's single strike. If these Numbered Members were also created, that would explain why their origins are a mystery."
"Does that mean the numbering sequence is their order of creation?"
Paimon thought for a moment and asked, but then immediately dismissed the idea.
"But that doesn't seem right. How come their flaws get bigger with each later number?"
"And ranking by strength isn't accurate either. It's hard to say about the other Numbered Members, but the strength No. 6 displayed was very average, it's just that he was difficult to kill."
At this, Keqing spoke up slowly.
Afterward, the group discussed for a good while longer but still came to no concrete conclusion.
At this moment, Ningguang spoke.
"Everyone, let's set this issue aside for now. There is a very important matter I need to explain to you all."
"This matter was brought back from Fontaine by the Traveler. Monsieur Neuvillette, the actual ruler of Fontaine, wishes to form an alliance with Liyue to jointly face a world-destroying catastrophe that will occur in the near future."
"We should discuss this with Rex Lapis before making a decision..."
Mountain Shaper stopped halfway through his sentence. He suddenly remembered that Zhongli hadn't appeared for a long time, probably still brooding in the shadows.
"Well, Rex Lapis seems to have already handed the governance of Liyue to us, but he only left a single sentence. Isn't forming an alliance directly too hasty? We don't know much about Fontaine."
Just as Mountain Shaper finished speaking, Ningguang nodded.
"You're right, it is a bit hasty. Therefore, Monsieur Neuvillette will speak with you all personally regarding the alliance."
After Ningguang finished speaking, she gestured for Lumine to take out the mobile phone she had brought for everyone to see. Soon, Lumine started the video call.
Looking at the imposing figure appearing on the phone screen, everyone was so stunned for a moment that they were speechless.