The bodies of the fallen Fatui elites lay scattered across the stone street.
Some had been cleaved cleanly in half.
Others lay with torn limbs and shattered armor, their blood trickling along the gaps between cobblestones in dark, branching lines that stood out starkly in the moonlit night.
Kaeya narrowed his eyes and studied them closely.
The wounds were brutal.
There was no sign of resistance.
It was as if the attackers had overwhelmed them instantly, giving them no time to defend themselves.
"Fatui elites… and more than one of them."
He muttered the words softly.
His brows furrowed, and a cold ripple of unease moved through him.
He knelt beside one corpse.
The dead man's fingers were still clamped tightly around his weapon, and the expression on his face was twisted with terror.
Kaeya tested the remaining warmth of the body and came to a quick conclusion.
"They died no more than half an hour ago."
His voice dropped even lower.
"Just what did they run into?"
The question lingered in the air as he centered his focus.
With his eyes closed, he concentrated on the fading elemental traces around him.
An unfamiliar energy immediately surfaced in his senses.
It was not merely fire.
It carried a violent and invasive heat, harsher and more destructive than ordinary flames.
Kaeya opened his eyes sharply and scanned the surroundings.
His gaze settled on a scorched patch of ground.
The stone surface had been burned until it twisted and warped.
Hardened streaks showed where molten rock had cooled.
Nearby walls were blackened and cracked, marked by intense heat that ordinary fire could never produce.
Only something extraordinarily volatile could leave damage like this.
But what caught his attention most was the lingering trace of a dark flame.
Kaeya's expression hardened.
"Black fire… the scent of a Delusion."
He moved closer and held his hand over the scorched trace.
Even the faintest residue stung his fingertips with heat.
He knew this power.
Delusions, the artificial elemental conduits mass-produced in Snezhnaya, granted temporary elemental control in exchange for severe backlash to the user's body.
Black flames like these had appeared across Mondstadt before.
And now they had burned here, in the heart of the city.
"Fatui elites fought here in the dead of night."
"And they even used Delusions."
His voice carried quiet gravity.
The Fatui would never fight openly within Mondstadt unless they had been forced into a corner.
Whoever they faced had pushed them far enough that using Delusion power was the only option.
Even so, the entire squad had been wiped out.
Kaeya straightened slowly.
His eyes swept the battlefield with an intensity sharpened by years of combat.
A moment later, another trace caught his senses.
A wave of energy more violent than even the Delusion's black fire.
He tensed.
This was not fire.
Nor was it the corrupt element of a Delusion.
It was something deeper, rawer, and far more destructive than anything he recognized.
It felt like the echo of pure annihilation.
Stronger than fire.
Stronger than black flame.
An unknown force filled with ruinous potential.
"What kind of power is this?"
Kaeya's voice was quiet, but the tension within it was unmistakable.
Nowhere in Mondstadt had he ever felt anything like this.
He had crossed blades with Delusion users before.
He had witnessed elemental experiments gone wrong.
He had even encountered corrupt abyssal power.
None of them resembled the violent residue lingering here.
"Stronger than Delusion fire… what have the Fatui cooked up now?"
He murmured the words, frowning deeply.
Nothing in his experience matched this energy.
It did not resemble any known elemental force.
It was a form of destructive power that almost defied classification.
"Who did this?"
The question emerged from him slowly.
A battle this intense, taking place inside Mondstadt, was already alarming.
The complete annihilation of a Fatui elite squad was even more shocking.
But that unknown destructive force troubled him the most.
If it erupted again, would the Knights of Favonius be able to withstand it?
As he walked forward, something else caught his eye.
A sword mark carved deeply into the stone.
The cut was clean and merciless, slicing through solid rock with ease.
Even more unsettling was the faint trace of that same destructive power lingering along its edge.
Kaeya's thoughts raced.
"The Abyss Order?"
"Or internal conflict within the Fatui?"
"Or did they experiment with something they could not control?"
He considered everything he knew.
The Doctor had already left Mondstadt.
The Lady did not operate with this kind of brutality.
Nothing about the situation aligned neatly with any known possibility.
He exhaled slowly.
The battlefield lay silent around him, littered with bodies and scorched stone.
Even with the faint traces fading away, the violence of the clash was clear as day.
Whoever did this had wielded terrifying power.
"This has to be reported. I need to alert the patrol squad and then go to Jean."
He raised a hand and gave a soft whistle.
A Windborne Falcon swooped down, and he dispatched it with practiced efficiency.
Within minutes, footsteps echoed at the far end of the street.
A squad of Knights of Favonius arrived quickly, armored and alert.
They halted as soon as they saw Kaeya standing amid the carnage.
Their gazes swept the bodies, and shock spread across their faces.
"This is…"
One knight gasped.
"Fatui elites?"
Another knight stepped forward, voice trembling.
"They are all… dead?"
A third swallowed hard.
"Who could possibly kill this many elites in such a short time…"
Their voices faded.
Every eye turned toward Kaeya.
He was standing alone in the center of the devastation.
He had called them here.
He was the senior officer present.
The implication was obvious.
Kaeya stared at their expressions for several long seconds.
Then a helpless twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth.
The tension in his face slowly dissolved into speechless exasperation.
"Wait. Do not tell me you think I did this."
He looked at them, more tired than angry.
"This was not me."