Stench. Darkness. Cold.
The sewage clung to Orien like a suffocating second skin, its filth crawling over him as the current dragged him into the black. His lungs burned, bile rose, but he forced himself to keep moving, arms and legs cutting against the torrent.
Behind him, the shouts of the Matra faded, swallowed by the rush of water. Silence and choking dark pressed in.
Time lost meaning—until a dim glimmer flickered ahead. The current eased. He swam toward it, breaking through a rusted grate into a cavernous cistern.
Orien hauled himself onto stone, collapsing in a heap. He hacked and coughed, chest convulsing as fetid water poured from his lungs. Every muscle screamed. His reserves were ashes.
But he was alive.
And rage, cold and sharp, took root in the relief. Cyno's blade had nearly ended him. He clenched his teeth. Next time, I'll be ready.
He sat up, vision clearing. The chamber stretched vast, its damp walls humming with faint machinery. The air was tainted not by sewage now, but by something worse—metal, chemicals, and a sickly-sweet perfume that turned the stomach.
In his hand, the Fatui sigil pulsed, violet light tugging him deeper.
Bingo.
He wrung the filth from his clothes with a flicker of elemental power, drew on Stealth and Concealment, and slipped into the maze.
The deeper he went, the less it looked like natural rock. Plates of steel lined the walls. Grated walkways hummed beneath his steps. Faint lamps bled pale light. The hum of machines grew into a chorus, the cloying drug-stench thickening with every breath.
Signs of horror marked the path: shattered vials branded with hazard glyphs; claw marks gouged into metal; corpses twisted and broken, faces frozen in agony. Laborers, researchers—it made no difference. Each had died screaming.
This was no factory. This was a tomb.
At last he reached a sealed door disguised as stone. The sigil flared, runes unlatched, and the slab split open.
The sight beyond stole his breath.
A cavern the size of a mountain's hollowed heart spread before him.
At its center, a machine unlike anything in Teyvat writhed with cables and pipes, feeding rows upon rows of tanks. Each tank glowed faintly, bodies suspended in their fluids: some human, some warped into monstrosities, some unrecognizable altogether.
At the core churned a vortex of unstable light—violet laced with sickly green—spewing energy that stank of ozone and madness.
The air was alive with whispers. Thousands of voices murmuring at once, pressing against the mind.
The Orchard. The workshop of heresy. The factory of god-knowledge.
On a raised control platform stood the overseer—tall, cloaked in a hybrid of Sumeru's scholar garb and Fatui insignia, a sweep of blue hair over one shoulder.
A Doctor's segment.
And in the chamber's heart, bound by layers of wards, floated a canister unlike the rest—crystal instead of metal, holding not liquid, but a roiling knot of rainbow light. A lure, a storm, a maw.
The system shrieked in his mind:
[Warning! Extreme hazard. Unrefined god-knowledge detected. Immediate evacuation advised!]
The Poison Apple.
Below, chaos flared.
"Lord! Number 7 vessel's resonance is spiking!" a trembling researcher shouted.
"Sedatives?" The Doctor's segment chuckled. "No. Let it ripen. Bitterness makes the fruit sweeter."
"But—the vessel will—"
"Then it dies. That is its honor."
Cold words fell like iron. The worker bowed, retreating in terror.
Orien's hands curled into fists. Monsters.
He crept closer, intent on recording proof. But as he passed a massive tank, it convulsed.
The figure inside spasmed, eyes snapping open. No humanity—only torment. It thrashed, slamming hands against glass.
Then it screamed.
Soundless, yet deafening.
A tidal wave of psychic agony burst forth, smashing through the lab. Shards of thought, broken knowledge, fractured lives—all rammed into skulls with brutal force.
Researchers toppled, clutching their heads. Alarms blared. Tanks shattered, spilling horrors into the floor.
Orien staggered, nearly pitched to the ground.
[High-level psychic pollution detected!]
[Firewall overloading—stabilizing with Fracture Value! -1000! -1000!]
His vision blurred. But worse—the dormant seed inside him, that rose-knowledge he had half-suppressed, flared alive. Flower scents and gossip, spliced into the nightmare shrieking of the failed vessels. Reality bent.
"—hahh!" He slammed a hand to a pipe, fighting to hold form. His skull felt pried open.
Then a voice cut through the cacophony.
"Interesting."
The Doctor's segment had turned. Behind the mask, eyes glinted with amusement. His gaze found Orien in an instant, cutting through the veil of stealth as though it never existed.
"A rat, here? With a will strong enough to resist? Perfect. I needed a new host."
He raised a hand. Below, armored Fatui snapped to motion, drawing weapons.
"Alive," the Doctor ordered. "Bring me that one. His mind will make an excellent orchard bed."
Blades gleamed. Footsteps closed in.
Orien gritted his teeth, head pounding, vision spinning. Trapped in the heart of hell itself—
And hunted.
(End of Chapter)
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