The morning air in Mondstadt had been thick—not with moisture, but with a static, heavy pressure that made the birds go silent. Reinhardt van Astrea stood on the upper battlements of the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, his hands resting lightly on the cold stone. He had spent the night in the quarters Jean provided, though he had not slept. A man with the Divine Protection of Wakefulness had no need for the vulnerability of dreams, yet he often found himself mimicking the posture of rest just to put others at ease.
He spent the hours watching the wind, trying to understand the "rhythm" of this world. It was fundamentally different from the atmosphere of Lugunica. There, the mana was a chaotic, singular force. Here, the "elemental energy" felt segmented, separated into seven distinct, vibrating flavors. To a man who was the focal point of the world's atmosphere, it felt like a chorus singing in a key he hadn't yet mastered.
A sudden, sharp chill raced down his spine.
—Divine Protection of Danger Detection.
Reinhardt didn't look at the sky; he looked at the city below. He saw a merchant's cart tip over as the wind suddenly roared. He saw a stray cat hiss and dive under a porch. The very air seemed to recoil, as if the oxygen itself were trying to flee the island of Mondstadt. Then, he looked up.
The blue sky was being swallowed by a bruised, sickly green. Massive, funneling tornados dropped from the clouds like the fingers of a giant, raking across the Cider Lake and lifting thousands of tons of water into the air. The water didn't fall back down; it swirled into the vortex, turning the sky into a churning ocean.
Then came the roar.
It was a sound that didn't just vibrate in the air; it vibrated in the marrow of his bones. Out of the green vortex, a six-winged silhouette emerged. It was a dragon, its scales shimmering with an unhealthy, clotted purple glow. This was the "Stormterror" the knights had whispered about in the halls—the Dragon of the East, Dvalin.
"So, that is the sorrow of this world," Reinhardt murmured.
He turned to leave the battlements, but the wind was already upon the city. A massive gust, fueled by the dragon's rage, slammed into the headquarters. Stone tiles were ripped from the roof like paper. A knight on the walkway below was nearly swept off his feet, his cape snagging on a jagged piece of masonry. Reinhardt arrived beside him before the man could even scream. He caught the knight by the back of his armor, anchoring him to the stone with a strength that didn't seem to care about the gale.
"Go inside," Reinhardt said, his voice level and calm despite the screaming wind. "Ensure the windows are shuttered. The storm is not merely wind; it is a manifestation of grief."
The knight, pale-faced and trembling, could only nod before scrambling toward the safety of the heavy oak doors.
High above the city, Lumine felt the world spinning. She was clinging to the frame of a Wind Glider, the fabric snapping violently in the gale. This was not the elegant flight she had imagined when Amber had first shown her the device. The Anemo energy she had recently acquired at the Statue of the Seven was acting as a buoy, but the dragon's sheer presence was overwhelming the currents.
"Lumine! Look out!" Paimon shrieked, her tiny hands clutching Lumine's scarf so hard her knuckles were white. "The big dragon is heading right for us! Paimon doesn't want to be a snack for a grumpy dragon!"
Lumine didn't have time to look at the ground. Her world had shrunk to the size of Dvalin's glowing, corrupted scales. She banked hard to the left, narrowly avoiding a burst of high-pressure wind that would have shredded her glider. She felt the Anemo energy pulsing in her palms—a foreign, flighty power that responded to her will but lacked the permanence of her original strength.
She was a traveler from another world, stripped of her wings of light and her true power, fighting with borrowed wings and a dull blade against a beast of myth. Her focus was absolute; she had to survive, and she had to protect the city that had just welcomed her. She dove, the wind whistling past her ears, channeling every ounce of the wind she could command into precise, stinging strikes.
She wasn't looking at the ground. She couldn't afford to. Below her, the city was a blur of red roofs and white stone, but to her, it was just the backdrop for a duel she wasn't sure she could win.
Dvalin roared—a sound of pure, unadulterated agony—and banked over the Cathedral. He opened his maw, and a sphere of condensed, corrupted Anemo energy began to form. It glowed with a sickly violet light, pulsing with the rhythm of the Abyss.
On the ground, Reinhardt saw the dragon's throat glow. He saw the girl in the sky—the one the knights called the Traveler—struggling to stay aloft in the wake of the beast's power. He saw the citizens of Mondstadt huddling in doorways, their eyes filled with the kind of terror that only comes when a protector turns into a predator.
He stood in the center of the square, a crimson-and-white pillar of absolute stability.
"Acting Grand Master!" Reinhardt called out.
Jean was on the stairs of the headquarters, her sword drawn, trying to coordinate a defense that was rapidly falling apart. She saw the dragon's throat glowing and knew what was coming. It was the same breath attack that had leveled fortresses in the ancient stories. "Everyone, evacuate! The plaza is gone! Get to the lower levels!"
Reinhardt stepped forward. He didn't draw the Dragon Sword Reid. The hilt remained silent, a cold weight at his hip. The sword was sentient in its own right; it only allowed itself to be drawn against foes it deemed "worthy." To the sword, this dragon—corrupted, pained, and manipulated—was a victim, not a monster.
So, Reinhardt simply raised his left hand, palm open.
The beam hit.
There was no explosion. The white-hot spear of wind hit Reinhardt's palm and dissolved into harmless, cool air.
—Divine Protection of Magic Resistance. —Divine Protection of Elemental Neutralization.
The ground beneath his boots remained pristine, while the cobblestones just inches away had been scorched black and cracked by the peripheral heat. To anyone watching, it looked as if the dragon's power had simply hit a wall of absolute reality and shattered.
Reinhardt looked up, watching the dragon circle for another pass. He saw the purple spike on the dragon's neck—the source of the rot, the anchor of the Abyss Order's control.
"I will help you find your peace," Reinhardt said.
He reached down and picked up a piece of jagged stone masonry that had fallen from a nearby fountain. It was a rough, unremarkable chunk of rock.
—Divine Protection of Accuracy.
He flicked his wrist. It wasn't a throw; it was a release of kinetic intent. The stone became a blur of white light, moving so fast it created a sonic crack that shattered the remaining glass in the plaza. It struck the purple spike on Dvalin's neck with the force of a siege engine.
The spike shattered into a thousand jagged pieces of dark energy. Dvalin shrieked, a sound of sudden, jarring clarity, and fled toward the mountains, his wings beating with a new, frantic desperation.
Reinhardt stood in the center of the quiet plaza as Lumine descended, her Wind Glider folding away as she touched the ground. She was breathing hard, her hair disheveled from the flight. She looked at the dragon's retreating form, her eyes wide with the adrenaline of the fight, and then her gaze finally settled on the man in the plaza.
Jean and Kaeya approached, their footsteps heavy on the scorched stone.
"Sir Reinhardt," Jean began, her voice shaking with a mixture of awe and professional dread. "I have no words. I have never seen a person stand against a dragon's breath with their bare hands. Not even the legends of the Four Winds describe such a feat."
Reinhardt looked at his glove, which was not even singed, and then at Jean. He saw the suspicion in her eyes, the same suspicion he had faced a hundred times in Lugunica. People feared what they could not categorize. He realized that claiming "luck" would no longer work here. This was a world of "Visions" and "Elemental Laws." To claim luck was to lie to their faces, and a knight of the Astrea family did not lie.
"Acting Grand Master," Reinhardt said, his voice dropping its light tone for something more dignified and somber. "I realized earlier that my explanations were... insufficient. The truth is simpler, if perhaps more difficult to accept for those used to the laws of this land."
He stood tall, his crimson cloak settling around his shoulders.
"The truth is that I am simply strong. My body and my skills have been honed to a point where the winds of this world, no matter how fierce, cannot move me unless I allow it. I do not possess a Vision, nor do I command the elements of Teyvat. I am simply a man who has reached the limit of what a human can be."
Jean blinked. The bluntness of the statement was almost more jarring than the act itself. "You... you are 'simply strong' enough to stop a dragon? Without the favor of the Archons?"
"I am a knight," Reinhardt said, his smile kind but unyielding. "In my land, it is my duty to be the shield that does not break. I simply exist in a way that the world respects."
Kaeya stepped closer, his single eye tracking Reinhardt with a sharp, predatory intensity. He was a man who lived in the shadows of truths, and Reinhardt was a man who stood in the blinding light of one. "A man who is 'simply strong' enough to ignore the laws of physics. Master Reinhardt, you're a very dangerous person to have as a guest. Most people who are that strong have... let's say, ambitions."
Reinhardt met Kaeya's gaze with a terrifyingly clear sincerity. "My only ambition, Captain, is to ensure that those who cannot protect themselves never have to face a storm alone."
Reinhardt then turned to Lumine. She was standing there, silent, watching him. She didn't know the word "Descender"—that was a term for the scholars of the Abyss and the Fatui—and neither did he. She was just a girl who felt like a star fallen to earth, and he was a man who felt like a mountain that had always been there.
"You fought well in the sky, Lumine," Reinhardt said, offering a respectful bow. "To command the winds with such grace, even with a mechanical aid, is a rare gift. Mondstadt is lucky to have you."
Lumine looked at him. She felt the same strange silence in the air around him that she had felt when they first met. She had lost her true power, yet here stood a man who seemed to possess the power of a god without even trying.
"Who are you?" she asked. It was the only question that mattered.
"A traveler, much like yourself," Reinhardt said. "But for now, I am a knight of Mondstadt, if the Acting Grand Master will have me."
Jean straightened her back, her sense of duty overriding her shock. "The Abyss Order is using the dragon's pain to fuel their own ends. We need to clear out the temples surrounding the city to weaken the storm's hold. Lumine, your affinity for Anemo is key to the purification. Sir Reinhardt... your strength is a miracle we cannot afford to refuse."
The Questioning in the Hall of the Lion
Inside the headquarters, the atmosphere was thick with unspoken questions. The knights who had seen Reinhardt in the plaza were whispering in the hallways, their voices carrying through the stone arches. The "Red-Haired Saint" was already becoming a legend, a story that would be told in the taverns by nightfall.
In Jean's office, the air was still. Jean sat behind her desk, her hands folded. Kaeya stood by the window, half-hidden in the shadows, and Lumine sat in a chair opposite Reinhardt, Paimon floating nervously beside her.
"Let's be direct," Jean said, her voice regaining its command. "Sir Reinhardt, you claim your abilities are simply strength. But the Ruin Guard you dismantled yesterday... those machines have existed since the fall of the ancient civilizations five hundred years ago. They are built with technology that has been lost to time. No knight in Mondstadt—not even our best blacksmiths—knows how to take one apart without explosives."
She leaned forward, her blue eyes sharp. "And yet, you handled it like a clockwork toy. You knew exactly where the joints were. You knew how to sever the power flow with your fingers. How can 'strength' give you knowledge of a civilization that ended before you were born?"
Reinhardt met her gaze. He didn't look defensive; he looked patient, like a teacher explaining a simple concept to a struggling student. "I am a knight, Acting Grand Master. Part of our training involves the study of metallurgy and siege engines. While the design was unfamiliar, the principles of mechanics are universal. A joint is a joint, whether it is made of steel or bone. I simply saw the stress points and applied pressure where the machine was weakest."
"And the missiles?" Kaeya asked from the window. "They didn't just miss. I watched them. They veered. They flinched away from you as if you were made of the same pole of a magnet. Does 'strength' push the air away from you, too?"
Reinhardt smiled, a small, humble thing that made the room feel warmer. "I told you, Captain. I am strong. Sometimes, even the world itself decides that hitting me is a waste of effort. I do not ask the world to move; it simply chooses to do so."
The politeness was like a wall. It was so perfect, so dignified, that to push further felt like an insult. Jean felt a prickle of guilt. Here was a man who had saved her deaconess, saved her knights, and saved her city, and she was interrogating him like a criminal because he was too competent.
"I... I apologize," Jean said, her shoulders dropping. "It is my duty to be cautious. Mondstadt is under constant threat from the Fatui and the Abyss. A man of your... caliber... appearing out of nowhere is a variable I have to account for."
"Your caution is a credit to your order," Reinhardt said warmly. "I would expect nothing less from the Lion of the South. I only wish to be of use to this city while I am here."
Lumine watched him, her hand gripping the edge of her seat. She saw the way Jean's suspicion melted under his politeness. Reinhardt wasn't just strong; he was good. He was so aggressively, undeniably good that it made everyone else feel inadequate.
"If he's a knight," Lumine thought, "he's the kind of knight that only exists in stories. But stories always have a catch."
"So, what now?" Paimon asked, breaking the tension. "Are we going to find the dragon's nest? Paimon's ready for some adventure! (As long as there's snacks!)"
Jean looked at Lumine, then at Reinhardt. "The Abyss Order is using the dragon's pain. We need to clear out the temples. Lumine, you have shown an affinity for the wind that matches the dragon's own. Sir Reinhardt... your strength would be the greatest asset the Knights have had in generations."
"I am at your command," Reinhardt said.