"There is a disturbance," Nahida said, her voice tightening with a divine urgency. "Deep within the Irminsul. If the root rots, the fruit will wither. Whatever is happening with the Balladeer… it is secondary to the safety of the World Tree. I have seen Lumine fight before, so we can leave the Balladeer to her. We must go."
She held out her small hand towards Ren. Her eyes were not commanding, but pleading. She needed an anchor, a witness, perhaps just a friend in the realm of memories.
Ren didn't hesitate. He grasped her hand firmly. "I'm with you."
A swirl of verdant leaves and data streams enveloped them.
Ningguang, who had been adjusting her gloves, preparing to join this divine expedition, blinked. One moment they were there, the next, empty air. She let out a long, elegant sigh, the sound echoing in the empty chamber.
"Gods and their teleportation," she murmured, a flicker of worry crossing her face before she steeled herself. "Well. If he is with the Dendro Archon, he is arguably safer than anywhere else." She turned her gaze toward the massive doors leading to the god-creation chamber, where the sounds of battle were beginning to rise. "I suppose I shall go ensure the Traveler does not destroy the entire building."
The transition was instant. The stone walls of the Sanctuary vanished, replaced by an endless, ethereal void of pink and blue hues. The ground was a mist of memories, and the sky was a tapestry of data streams.
They stood before it. Irminsul. The World Tree.
It was colossal, a white, spectral giant that seemed to hold up the heavens. Its roots stretched into infinity, pulsing with the flow of Teyvat's history.
But something was wrong.
Ren felt it immediately—a prickling sensation on his skin, like static electricity before a storm. Nahida frowned, her hand tightening around his.
"The flow of information… it is chaotic," she whispered. "Someone is here."
They walked forward, the mist parting around them. As they neared the base of the great trunk, a figure came into view.
He stood with his back to them, gazing up at the tree with the casual interest of a tourist viewing a monument. He wore a long coat, and his hair was a pale, wavy blue.
Ren froze. His blood ran cold. Dottore.
But as the man turned, Ren realized with a jolt that this was not the Dottore he had expected. This was not the composed, masked aristocrat he knew from the game's Sumeru chapter. This man looked younger, sharper. His mask was a grotesque, black-and-white half-face, giving him the appearance of a demented harlequin. His grin was wider, wilder, lacking the terrifying restraint of the Prime segment.
"Finally," the man drawled, his voice a rasping, arrogant tenor. "You are here, Dendro Archon. I was beginning to calculate the decay rate of my own boredom."
His singular visible eye, burning red, locked onto Ren. The grin widened, revealing teeth.
"And you brought a pet," he mused, tilting his head. "So, this is the anomaly Omega warned me to keep an eye on. I expected something… taller. Or at least more mechanically interesting. What does he find so fascinating in a brat like you?"
Ren's mind raced. Omega. That was the Greek letter for the end, the last. He was referring to the Prime Dottore—the one Ren had feared. This… this was a different segment. A younger, brasher version, perhaps the one from the manga era, unleashed for chaos while the Prime handled the strategy.
"How did you come here?" Nahida demanded, stepping in front of Ren. "How did you enter the consciousness of the Great Tree? This place is forbidden to mortals."
The younger Dottore laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Forbidden? Please. Limits are merely challenges to be deconstructed. As for how… well, let's just say I found a back door while you were busy playing house with your little humans."
"Why are you here?" Nahida asked, her voice steady despite the intruder's menacing aura. "Where is my Gnosis?"
Dottore's laugh echoed in the void. "The irony," he sneered. "The God of Wisdom, asking me for answers. It seems Omega actually rates you too highly. You are blind to your own board."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out nothing, showing an empty palm with a mocking flourish.
"The Dendro Gnosis is gone, little god," he declared. "Omega has already extracted it from the Sages' foolish machine. It is currently en route to Snezhnaya, wrapped in silk and ice. He left yesterday."
Ren's breath hitched. The Gnosis was gone. But… Lumine was fighting Scaramouche right now.
If Scaramouche doesn't have the Electro Gnosis because I stole it… and he doesn't have the Dendro Gnosis because the Prime Dottore took it…
Ren's thoughts spiraled. What is powering the mecha-god? What is Lumine fighting?
"You look confused," the younger Dottore taunted, stepping closer. A small, strange mechanical device floated beside his shoulder, humming with an ominous, dark energy. "But my task isn't about the Gnosis. Omega handles the collection. I handle the… verification."
He turned back to the tree, his expression shifting from mockery to a cold, scientific mania.
"Irminsul," he whispered. "The heart of Teyvat. The repository of all that is and was. They say it records everything. But I have a hypothesis. What happens to the world… when the heart suffers a heart attack?"
He looked at Nahida, his eye gleaming. "Let's see what results we get when the foundation of reality is subjected to extreme thermal stress."
He snapped his fingers.
The sound was like a thunderclap in the silent realm.
The air shimmered. The serene image of the white, glowing tree flickered and vanished like a curtain being ripped away.
The reality beneath was a nightmare.
"No!" Nahida screamed, her hands flying to her mouth.
The Great Tree was burning.
Massive, red and black flames licked up the trunk of Irminsul. They were not normal fires; they were dark, oily, and unnatural, consuming the white bark and turning the glowing leaves into ash. The data streams in the sky were turning red, corrupted and screaming. The very ground beneath their feet felt hot, feverish.
This wasn't a metaphor. It wasn't a vision. The Doctor had somehow introduced a virus, a corruption so potent it manifested as an inferno within the ley lines themselves.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Dottore murmured, a floating contraption beside him pulsing in time with the flickering flames, recording the destruction. "The data… it's screaming. I wonder, does the world feel pain when its memories burn?"
He took a step forward, the fire reflecting in his mask. "The experiment begins."