At this moment, Yae Miko—transformed into her yokai fox form—carried everyone on her back, lightning crackling beneath her paws as she raced toward Liyue Harbor.
Lin Mo, Xiao, and the two adepti followed closely behind, each relying on their own power of flight.
As they left the airspace above the sea where Osial lurked, everyone instinctively turned back.
They all wanted to see it.
To see whether the Jade Chamber—falling like a celestial star—could truly suppress and annihilate Osial.
Under countless gazes, the Jade Chamber, blazing with dazzling light, plunged straight downward.
It pierced through thick layers of clouds.
Accompanied by pouring rain,
it fell into the smoke-shrouded sea below.
The next instant—
"Hmmm—!!!"
A deep, resonant hum erupted.
Everyone's ears rang as if they had gone temporarily deaf.
The Cloud Sea lit up in an instant!
The land that had been smothered in dark storm clouds now shone as brightly as midday beneath a blazing sun.
Even those who had already fled several kilometers from the blast zone could feel the temperature in the sky spike sharply.
High above, the black clouds were torn apart and forced backward.
Long-lost sunlight streamed through the ruptured heavens, illuminating the epicenter of the explosion.
A colossal mushroom cloud—wider than the entire Tianheng Mountain—rose straight into the sky.
The shockwave it unleashed carved an enormous crater downward into the Cloud Sea itself.
Beyond the crater, towering walls of seawater surged outward in a frenzy.
Even those flying in midair were violently thrown about by the terrifying blast.
Only Yae Miko, in her yokai form, managed—barely—to maintain her balance against the shockwave.
Even so,
the fragile humans clinging to her were forced to grip her thick pink fur with all their strength, lest they be swept away.
It was easy to see—
Klee, Amber, Hu Tao…
All of them had their mouths wide open, screaming at the top of their lungs.
But…
Aside from the deafening hum born of the Jade Chamber's detonation, all other sounds in the world seemed to have vanished.
The turbulence from the shockwave gradually faded.
Everyone fixed their gaze on the towering mushroom cloud.
One minute passed.
"Splash—!"
"Splash—!!"
When waves finally crashed against the rocks and washed over the docks of Liyue Harbor,
only then did everyone realize—
Their hearing had returned.
Bathed in a beam of sunlight, they stared at the colossal mushroom cloud soaring into the heavens.
The tension that had gripped their hearts finally eased, just a little.
"Is it… over?" Paimon asked uncertainly.
"It should be… over, right?" Amber said, her voice filled with confusion.
Though she couldn't see what lay within the mushroom cloud,
surely even a god would struggle to survive such a cataclysmic explosion—one powerful enough to silence the heavens and the earth.
"Is it really over?" Lin Mo murmured.
But the two adepti and Xiao offered no reply.
Just then—
From the churning sea,
a water-formed phantom frog crawled out onto the surface.
As the first Hydro apparition appeared,
a second followed…
then a third…
a hundred…
a thousand!
Thousands upon thousands of water-formed creatures emerged one after another across the sea.
"How is this possible?! Why isn't it over yet?!" Hu Tao cried out.
The dense mass of Hydro phantoms filling most of the Cloud Sea made everyone's scalp tingle.
"Roooaaaar—!!!"
A thunderous whale-like roar echoed across heaven and earth.
The sheer force of the sound alone was enough to disperse the towering mushroom cloud that pierced the sky.
The massive body of the Overlord of the Vortex, Osial,
still floated above the boiling sea.
"Even if Rex Lapis were still alive… this would be an enemy beyond reckoning."
Faced with such an overwhelming god,
even Xiao—who revered the Geo Archon's strength without reservation—felt his resolve waver at the sheer vitality Osial displayed.
Lin Mo clenched his teeth hard.
Just as Yae Miko had said,
under the corrosion and control of Abyssal power,
Osial had burned through his divine essence.
In the short term, the vitality and combat power he could unleash were twice that of his prime.
Was this truly a monster that could be defeated?
Even if the Geo Archon himself descended from Tianheng Mountain,
could he still suppress this colossal being?
After all, Rex Lapis was no longer at his peak—
time had worn him down, his strength diminished.
Then Lin Mo noticed something.
"Osial's body… it's only half as large as when we first saw him."
"Does that mean… his power has fallen back to what it was in the past?" Lin Mo asked the adepti beside him.
Xiao shook his head.
"If the Guizhong Ballista still existed, there might be hope. But it's gone. Mortal beings—even adepti like us—cannot defeat him."
"Damn it…"
Lin Mo clenched his fists, frustration flooding his heart.
Across a hundred lifetimes—
an adeptal physique, Tengu bloodline, a supercharged heart…
With all these powers combined, his strength was already infinitely close to that of a god.
Yet before a true god, he still felt powerless.
And Osial was no ordinary god—
he was the Overlord of the Vortex, a terror who had nearly dominated the seas during the Archon War.
"Everyone, be careful!" Keqing shouted urgently.
Osial's five heads suddenly blazed with light.
Five pillars of azure water blasted toward them.
"Dodge!" Lin Mo cried out.
But—
the speed of the water pillars left them no chance to evade.
Slash—!
Slash—! Slash—!!
Under the onslaught of three water pillars,
even Yae Miko's yokai body began to falter.
"Ah—! Traveler!!" Paimon screamed.
Lumine pushed Klee away just before the residual shockwave struck—
but she herself was sent flying by the torrent.
Her body tumbled straight toward the sea.
Yae Miko immediately dove downward and caught Lumine on her back.
"Are you alright?" Yae Miko asked with concern.
"She… she looks like she passed out…" Paimon's voice trembled with worry.
"Rustan!!!"
A shrill, heart-wrenching cry rang out.
Everyone's hearts seized.
They instinctively turned toward where Lin Mo had been.
He was falling straight down toward the sea, eyes tightly shut.
Whoosh—!
Whoosh—! Whoosh—!
Several streaks of green light darted across the sea surface.
Xiao had acted, catching Lin Mo mid-fall.
Moments later, Lin Mo was returned to Yae Miko's back.
"Dad! Dad, what's wrong? Dad!" Klee cried, shaking Lin Mo's shoulders frantically.
"It's my fault…" Xiao lowered his head bitterly.
"I dodged the first attack, but not the second…"
"At the last moment… Lord Lin Mo pushed me away…"
"Rustan…"
Rosalyne hurried forward and pulled Lin Mo into her arms.
Large tears fell onto his face, one after another.
Though unconscious, Lin Mo's expression was twisted in pain.
Eula, Ganyu, Keqing, Hu Tao…
Everyone stared at his tightly closed eyes, their hearts clenched in anguish.
Keqing's palms were already red, her nails biting deep into her skin.
"If this continues… Lin Mo will leave us forever…"
Lumine closed her eyes in pain.
"Inazuma's divine fox… please take us away—"
Before she could finish—
"Awooooo—!!!"
A ferocious, soul-shaking howl echoed from the distant sea.
"This voice… could it be…?"
Eula snapped her head toward the source of the howl.
In that direction, the sea had already frozen into a vast expanse of glacial land.
From Wolvendom, the North Wind's Great Wolf
was charging across the ice toward Osial.
Even more unbelievable—
the sky above that direction had been dyed a deep, stormy purple by countless bolts of lightning.
"It's the witch's power…"
"The Violet Witch… has returned to the world?" Cloud Retainer exclaimed, instantly recognizing the source.
The Wolf of the North Wind surged forward toward Osial.
With its arrival,
the entire Cloud Sea became a frozen wasteland stretching thousands of miles.
And atop the wolf stood a figure clad in a purple mage's robe, lightning gathered in her hand.
As everyone focused on the reinforcements from Wolvendom—
"ROAR!!!"
"ROAR!!!"
Two titanic dragon roars erupted almost simultaneously.
The heavens trembled.
Everyone instinctively covered their ears.
Two colossal dragons, blotting out the sky,
burst through the clouds and tore through the mist toward Osial.
"Ah! It's Brother Durin!!" Klee cried out excitedly.
She recognized the star-silver dragon soaring through the sky—
Lin Mo's child, her brother.
Mondstadt's Fifth Guardian—Durin.
"And Dvalin too! They came together!" Paimon added.
The other dragon was the East Wind Dragon who had carried them back to Mondstadt from Stormterror's Lair just a month ago—Dvalin.
Rumble—!
At that moment,
the violent shaking of both land and ice drew everyone's gaze downward.
It seemed that with the arrival of the Wolf of the North Wind and the sky-rending dragons, everyone's attention had been drawn away—
so no one noticed when the sea beneath their feet had frozen solid.
Countless Geo Vishaps,
led by an Ancient Geo Vishap,
charged onto the ice.
They clashed fiercely with the Hydro phantoms on the frozen sea.
"Why… why are the Geo Vishaps helping us?" Ningguang murmured in disbelief.
Just then—
Rumble!!!
Everyone could clearly feel it.
Across thousands of miles of ice,
across tens of thousands of miles of land,
everything was shaking violently.
Boom—!!!
A thunderous explosion rang out.
From the ice covering Osial's domain,
a mountain-sized colossal being burst forth, shattering the frozen surface.
Its body slammed straight toward Osial.
A tail like a world-piercing divine tree swept forward,
dragging with it endless frost,
and smashed into Osial's massive form.
"Azhdaha… he's broken his seal…" Xiao spoke in awe.
This was a being whose strength rivaled the Geo Archon himself.
…
"Rustan… how are you…"
Rosalyne's voice caused everyone to turn back toward Lin Mo.
At some point,
his body had been enveloped in a gentle green glow.
Within that soft radiance,
the pain had vanished from his face.
Everyone followed the source of that emerald light.
On a mountain peak along the coast stood a bard, playing a lyre.
Venti gazed toward Lin Mo resting on the fox's back and smiled.
"Lord Barbatos, you can't leave me alone to manage Mondstadt."
"Without your scolding, who knows when I might grow too lazy again."
At the same time—
on Tianheng Mountain,
Zhongli, who had been watching the Cloud Sea, slowly closed his eyes.
"Guizhong is gone. Old friend… you should not fall here."
In his hand, a radiant crystal core bearing his divine power began to glow.
Slowly, it rose into the sky.
At last, it descended above the Cloud Sea.
A pillar of brilliant golden light fell from the heavens, enveloping Lin Mo.
"This is…"
Xiao immediately sensed something.
Within the interweaving golden and green radiance,
Lin Mo was beginning to emanate a divine aura!
And that aura—
was even more terrifying than Osial's after being corroded by the Abyss.
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T/N:
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