The Death Archon, one of the four shadow avatars of Phanes, originally derived power from the death of living beings, not to mention the fall of an ultimate powerhouse like Nibelung, which directly caused its strength to leap forward by bounds, far surpassing the other three Sustainers of Heavenly Principles.
Therefore, the biggest winner of this battle was actually the Death Archon, and amidst the lingering obsession of Nibelung's death, it also realized the terrifying enhancement that forbidden knowledge provided to its own power.
Although the four of them were external avatars condensed by Phanes, Phanes had absolute control over them, and their lives were completely in the grasp of a single thought from him.
However, time can change many things, and even the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles is no exception. They were also powerful life forms with their own consciousness and dignity; what kind of situation was it to always be controlled by others?
Through this battle, the Death Archon harbored other thoughts regarding forbidden knowledge; however, if it were to come into contact with forbidden knowledge now, it would definitely alert Phanes.
If Phanes were to know that it had violated his orders, he would realize that it was no longer the shadow avatar who obeyed his every word, and then he would ruthlessly erase it and subsequently condense a new Death Archon.
Therefore, it must endure for now. Moreover, forbidden knowledge was indeed extremely dangerous; if one rashly contacted it, it might produce other hazards. At a time like this, it needed someone else to scout the path ahead for it.
Coincidentally, at this time, an event occurred that made the Death Archon feel it had found an excellent opportunity.
After Phanes ruled the Teyvat World, he once formulated the righteous law established by High Heaven: the sky and the ground were distinct, and only the sky could govern the ground, without any act of transgression from bottom to top.
Precisely because of this, the people on the ground could directly hear the revelations from the sky. The messengers of the Gods, namely the Sustainers of Heavenly Principles, walked among the mortal realm, passing down the words of the sky. As long as humans honestly obeyed the revelations of the sky, they could enjoy a prosperous and stable life. Sounds wonderful, right?
But humans are just such strange creatures; clearly having lived a prosperous life under guidance, they gradually grew tired of this eternity later on.
Past wisdom brought prosperity, prosperity brought pride and dreams, as well as beginning to question the authority of the sky, and even attempting to ascend to Celestia.
When humans produced such a phenomenon, one had to mention a miraculous race: the Seelie.
They possessed wisdom and beauty that did not belong to the ground, and even Phanes married a young Seelie girl, but this race was very fond of humans and taught them many principles.
Phanes felt that it was what the Seelie did to humans that led humans to transgress the regulations he had originally established.
Thus, Phanes made his move, causing heavy rain to fall on Teyvat for a hundred consecutive days, submerging all city-states and civilizations. When the tide receded, the surviving humans gradually established a new civilization in the identity of barbarians.
Meanwhile, to prevent other higher races from corrupting humans again, Heavenly Principles, under the suggestion of the Death Archon, forced all Gods within Teyvat to participate in the Archon War, deciding only seven victors and conferring upon them the title of The Seven Archons.
After all, compared to supervising so many Gods on the Teyvat continent, it was far more convenient to only supervise these seven.
As for the Seelie, Phanes cast a curse upon them, making every Seelie carry a curse from birth. Once they fell in love with a human, they would lose their wisdom and strength, their bodies would degenerate, and they would finally turn into a Seelie wandering in Teyvat.
Yet even so, the Seelie's nature of liking humans remained unchanged. Thus, the Seelie race that was originally active in Teyvat reached the verge of extinction.
Because of this matter, Phanes's Seelie wife gradually broke off her relationship with Phanes. What truly made her heart turn cold was that not long after, Phanes once again personally dropped the Skyfrost Nail, destroying the ancient kingdom of Vindagnyr which attempted to use the white tree to extract ley line power, turning the originally prosperous ancient kingdom into a snow-capped mountain of perennial severe cold.
Because of this matter, the relationship between the two completely collapsed, and she herself was exiled by Phanes from Celestia to the mortal realm. The name of this Seelie was Nabu Malikata, who was later the Goddess of Flowers of Sumeru!
As a race that loves and hates fiercely, once the Seelie developed genuine feelings, they would stop at nothing to protect their love. However, if the other party betrayed their feelings, she would take revenge at all costs, even against the Heavenly Principles residing high above Celestia.
This personality flaw of the Goddess of Flowers was also completely copied onto her daughters, the Jinni race.
Due to her race being cursed and her broken relationship, the Goddess of Flowers had always wanted to take revenge on Heavenly Principles. However, the strength gap between the two sides was far too vast; relying solely on herself, it was simply impossible to achieve. Right at this moment, the Death Archon appeared before her and informed her of the secret of forbidden knowledge.
Having learned of this matter, the Goddess of Flowers decided to use her own life as bait, allowing the powerful Scarlet King—who admired her—to obtain the power of forbidden knowledge and retaliate against Heavenly Principles.
Thus, with the help of the Death Archon, the Goddess of Flowers used her own life to open the passage to the shattered world, successfully allowing the Scarlet King to obtain forbidden knowledge. And just as the Goddess of Flowers and the Death Archon had anticipated, the Scarlet King began to research the power of forbidden knowledge.
In order to conduct in-depth research, the Scarlet King even abandoned his physical body, carrying out deep exploration within a data world consisting only of consciousness.
Coincidentally, this matter was also detected by Apep lurking beneath Sumeru, and thus, a scheme upon scheme was staged right then and there.
Due to researching forbidden knowledge, the Scarlet King caused countless abnormalities in Sumeru. Eleazar, the Withering zones, and frantic murmurings began to emerge endlessly, and he himself headed down a path of self-destruction due to taking the wrong path.
However, before his death, the Scarlet King also realized the harm of forbidden knowledge, so he found Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, hoping she would lend a hand out of old ties. Greater Lord Rukkhadevata also decisively took action, pouring massive vitality into building temples, and even at the cost of shrinking her own body, finally managed to barely suppress the spread of forbidden knowledge.
As for the Scarlet King, he schemed against Apep by having it swallow him in one gulp, thereby preventing the disaster. This was the backup plan left by the Scarlet King for the failure of his experiment.
However, even though Greater Lord Rukkhadevata timely suppressed the spread of forbidden knowledge, within the territory of Sumeru, there was not just the single nation of Sumeru.
The ancient kingdom of Khaenri'ah beneath Sumeru also obtained forbidden knowledge at this very point in time.