"Columbina!"
No sooner had Coppelia's cry faded than Columbina's hand was on her shoulder.
An invisible force instantly enveloped the two, lifting their feet off the ground and suspending them in the air.
Without a moment's hesitation, an azure light surged around Coppelia as Anemo energy erupted violently beneath her feet and behind her!
"BOOM—!"
A muffled sonic boom exploded in the air! The two transformed into an azure meteor, flying against the howling gales, charging straight for the violent sphere of wind imprisoning Venti in the sky!
The crowd on the ground erupted in an uproar, startled by the sudden development and the noise. They all looked up, only to see a streak of azure light tearing through the gray, hazy sky.
Coppelia and Columbina's approach seemed to have caught Decarabian's attention; the sphere of wind imprisoning Venti faltered for a moment.
Coppelia seized the fleeting opportunity, pushing her Anemo energy to the limit to increase her speed even further, on the verge of touching the churning wall of wind!
Thirty meters! Only thirty meters left!
A barrier of fierce wind, containing immense power, suddenly descended. Coppelia instinctively thought to conjure a Geo shield for defense.
But this gale did not attack. Instead, like an invisible hand, it halted Coppelia's forward momentum and gently pushed the two backward.
The distance between them slowly increased. Coppelia gritted her teeth, the elemental energy surging within her, as she tried to break through the obstruction with even stronger wind pressure.
However, the more force she applied, the stronger the repelling gale became, pushing them even farther away.
Just then, around the sphere imprisoning Venti, the already violent gales suddenly thickened and began to rotate at an astonishing speed!
A massive tornado connecting heaven and earth formed in an instant, with the wind sphere at the very eye of the storm!
A grating shriek emanated from within the tornado, threatening to grind everything inside the sphere into the finest dust!
That was not enough!
The wielder of the gales seemed determined to leave nothing to chance. Outside the tornado, dozens of pale-azure wind lances, formed from highly condensed, violent divine power, materialized out of thin air!
Each one was several meters long, its tip gleaming with the cold light of destruction, locked firmly onto the sphere of wind.
As soon as they formed, the dozens of wind lances turned their tips in unison, transforming into dozens of streaks of deadly light that shot toward the eye of the tornado from all directions!
At the same time, the massive tornado let out a roar of final judgment and began to contract violently inward!
A block of ice seemed to have been dropped into Coppelia's mind, freezing all thought. It wasn't emptiness, but a suffocating despair.
All her power seemed so insignificant before this cataclysmic divine punishment.
She could think of no way out, able only to watch helplessly as the center of the storm, where a force of infinite destruction was converging, held the companion she wanted to save.
In that final moment, Columbina released her hand from Coppelia's shoulder.
The skin on her face not covered by her clothes suddenly began to glow with a moonlight-like radiance.
Her figure blurred where she stood, and in the next instant, she vanished into thin air!
When she reappeared, she was at the very center of the storm, inside the sphere of wind that imprisoned Venti!
The lethal tips of the wind lances were less than a foot from her back! The terrifying shearing force from the contracting tornado had already begun to act upon her, instantly tearing at her moon-white robes!
She did not look back at the death so close at hand, but instead shot out her right hand with the greatest speed. The moment her fingertips touched Venti, she activated her ability again!
In the microsecond before the gales converged and the wind lances were about to collide, Columbina and Venti's figures once again vanished on the spot, as if erased!
In just an instant, Coppelia felt a weight lift from her shoulder, only to return a moment later. Immediately after, Columbina appeared directly in front of her.
With no time to process what Columbina had done, Coppelia threw her arms forward, tightly embracing the small, unconscious body before her.
At that same instant, she saw Venti appear next to Columbina's right hand. The wind sprite's azure glow had nearly been extinguished!
Her right hand shot out, grasping it firmly!
"BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Behind them, dozens of divine power-infused wind lances collided violently, clashing with the energy core of the tornado as it contracted to its limit!
An energy storm beyond description erupted in an instant! Pale-azure, destructive energy expanded outward in a sphere, the colossal boom like ten thousand thunderclaps exploding by her ears at once. Even space itself rippled, trembling under the strain!
The chaotic shockwave of the storm slammed viciously into Coppelia's back, sending her and the unconscious Columbina in her arms flying dozens of meters away like a broken kite, before they began to plummet uncontrollably toward the ground!
During the fall, Coppelia endured the excruciating pain in her back, clutching Columbina tightly with her left hand. With her free right hand, she quickly condensed a ball of pure Geo energy, forming a small, amber-colored rock sphere that completely encased Venti, isolating his Anemo aura.
A safe landing! I have to find a way to land safely!
Her mind raced, trying to mobilize what little elemental energy she had left to create a buffer.
However, just then, the same gale that had pushed them away before reappeared, enveloping the falling pair like an invisible cushion.
The divine power within the wind was not gentle; it occasionally felt like tiny needles piercing her skin, bringing sharp pangs of pain, but on the whole, it effectively slowed their descent.
In the end, with this painful "help," the two landed with relative stability in a soft field, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Almost at the same moment they landed, a far more magnificent gale swept down from the top of the tower, and Decarabian's voice, filled with an all-pacifying authority, echoed in the ears of every citizen of Mondstadt:
"My people, do not panic! An evil foreign god has bewitched some of the foolish, who wish to flee my eternal protection and throw themselves into the frozen wastes and the deadly lands of the North Wind's Wolf King! Such actions are nothing short of self-destruction!"
"Just now, I have utterly destroyed that evil foreign god who deceived the people and attempted to take hostages, annihilating it along with its foul source, body and soul!"
"As for the civilians it held hostage, I have ensured their safe landing. You must all remember—"
"Under my gales, within these high walls, no evil can ever harm you!"
Sprawled in the field, Coppelia listened to the city-wide proclamation and instantly understood.
He had mistaken the ability the two of them had just used as Venti's last-ditch effort to "take a hostage"...
So the wind that pushed us away and then helped us land... it thought it was saving "hostage civilians"?
She struggled to her feet and immediately checked on Columbina's condition.
The girl's robes were torn in several places. On her exposed arms, shoulder, and neck were several long, narrow, bright red marks, as if she had been lashed by a high-speed whip. Though the skin wasn't broken, they were swollen into clear welts.
Can't stay here any longer!
Coppelia immediately lifted the unconscious girl into her arms, tightly clutching the rock sphere sealing Venti in her right hand. She forced herself to stand, preparing to leave.
Just as she stood up straight, she saw several soldiers running from the other side of the field's ridge, apparently drawn over by the commotion to investigate.
At the same time, a cold, commanding female voice came from behind and to her side:
"Go see if they're injured. Be careful, they might be civili—"
The voice stopped abruptly.
Coppelia turned her head instinctively.
Her gaze met that of a figure with flowing white hair, holding a white longbow.
The moment Amos's sharp eyes clearly saw Coppelia's face, her pupils dilated violently!
___
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