Orion stepped beneath the morning sun of Fontaine, its light spilling like liquid gold across the cobbled streets. The scent of seawater and fresh pastries lingered in the air as he made his way toward the port — the old one, still used by locals before aquabuses became common travel.
A shadow passed overhead, followed by the rush of wind.
Felix descended in a graceful arc from the sky, wings folding as he landed beside them with a soft thud. His claws clicked on the stone, his tail curling like a sleepy cat's.
"We're not flying to the harbor?" he asked, tilting his horned head with mild confusion.
"No way," Orion said, mildly annoyed. "Don't you remember what happened last time? We were almost thrown in jail—if it weren't for my royal status as Crown Prince of Arian and the fact that it was our first offense in Fontaine..."
Felix snorted and rolled his eyes—well, the draconic equivalent of it.
"Fine. Be as you will." He padded forward and climbed aboard the vessel with a reluctant huff.
The boat was modest, carved from deep-sea pine with ornate bronze filigree curling along its rails. Its hull bore the gentle sheen of seawater-polished wood, and a small wheelhouse sat at the back, roofed with blue-tiled shingles. It bobbed gently against the dock, tied with ropes so neatly coiled it seemed almost ceremonial. A painted emblem of the Hydro Archon's sigil glistened faintly on the side—more for decor than enforcement.
The vessel could carry a dozen passengers, but today, it was just them.
And the silence of the tide.
The boat glided from the port with a quiet shudder, pushed by paddles just beneath the hull that churned the canal water in rhythmic laps. Sunlight danced off the ripples, casting moving waves of light onto the underside of the canopy.
Elynas leaned over the edge of the boat, wide-eyed and entranced by the reflections in the water.
"Do you think there are sea ghosts in Fontaine?" she asked suddenly.
Orion blinked. "Sea what?"
"Ghosts that drowned. Maybe they whisper through the ripples."
Felix let out a grunt from where he lay curled near the front of the boat, wings tucked and tail dangling lazily over the side.
"If they were here, they'd leave the moment you started talking about them."
Elynas stuck her tongue out at him.
"That's rude."
"So is dragging a whole kingdom into divine judgment, but you don't hear me complaining," Felix muttered, but without venom. His tone was half-asleep, like he was already halfway into a nap.
Orion chuckled under his breath. "Don't bully her. She just got out of a bath without crying."
Inside his mind, Frieda snorted.
"She cried because I accidentally got soap in her eye."
"You aimed for her eye."
"Your motor skills are trash. I was correcting your hand."
Elynas tilted her head. "Are you talking to your girlfriend again?"
Orion nearly choked on air.
"S-she's not— I mean— we're—"
Frieda, with ice-cold calm:
"We're soulbound, Orion. That's practically married."
Felix cracked open one eye.
"Can you all shut up and let me hibernate before we're ambushed by some cosmic god again?"
The boat rocked gently beneath them. The wind carried laughter.
And for just a little while, the war, the Sovereigns, and the stars above all felt a little farther away.
The boat swayed softly beneath them. The scent of salt, the whisper of waves, the warmth of the sun—it all blended into something almost gentle. Elynas had nodded off beside Orion, clutching a stick with the last crystal of candied fruit still clinging to it. Felix was halfway asleep, his tail twitching like he was dreaming of chasing birds.
And then… reality screamed.
A crack tore across the horizon—red and black, pulsing with inverted rhythm like the heartbeat of something not meant to be born.
The sky split. Just like that.
Soundless. Seamless.
And violently wrong.
The rift shimmered in the shape of a fractured star, a star jagged cross of crimson, humming with power that didn't obey the rules of light or distance.
And through it, she came.
A woman stepped forward, or rather floated, untouched by gravity, as if space itself obeyed her mood.
She was young in appearance, but ancient in the way that silence between screams is ancient.
Her body was tall, poised—slender like a sword left to float in air. Her hair was long and cloud-white, drifting behind her like a trail of forgotten time. Her eyes…
Amber.
Each iris bisected horizontally by a sharp black line—as if even her gaze refused unity.
Her voice was neither loud nor soft.
It simply existed, and the world had no choice but to listen.
"So this is where you are," she said, tilting her head just slightly. "The last segment… of Nibelung's reincarnated soul."
In the frost-slick skies above Arian, the heavens themselves recoiled.
Lightning, not merely striking but rending the air, painted the sky in furious, jagged veins.
The very atmosphere shrieked, caught in the raw, primal clash of Cryo and Electro—of history and fury, memory and madness.
This was no skirmish; this was the overture of apocalypse.
On a frozen plateau, overlooking Arian's glacial cliffs, Raiclaus, Sovereign of Electro in mortal form, danced amidst the storm.
Her movements were a brutal ballet, each twirl of her black-lavender hair and every thunderous swing of her glaive an expression of pure, unbridled battlelust.
She laughed—a sound not cruel, but imbued with the wild, intoxicating joy of a predator unleashed.
"You're still so cold, Rosen!" she roared, her voice a whipcrack over the tempest. "I could kiss you or kill you, and you'd still only blink!"
Across from her, floating with the ancient, unyielding poise of a matriarch, was Mother Rosen, also known as VlastMoroz.
She inhabited the body of her child, Seraphyx, a deceptive vessel for such immense power.
Ice bloomed from her fingertips in fractal halos, each imperceptible movement leaving a delicate, crystalline platform suspended in the air.
"You're still so loud, Raiclaus," she replied, her voice a soft, chilling whisper that somehow cut through the thunder.
"A child in a thunderstorm. Screaming just to hear herself echo." A small smirk appeared on her lips.
"How can you be so amused when we haven't even used a fifth of our powers."
Their weapons met mid-air, a deafening collision of Cryo and Electro that sent raw pulses of energy tearing through the clouds, cracking distant mountaintops with their sheer force.
With each exchange, the sky grew more shattered, more chaotic.
This, they both knew, was the end of pretense, they need to show each other more, they needed to use the power of their concepts.
Below, the earth itself seemed to flinch.
Ignarion, the brutal, divine warrior, slowly lowered his great blade from his shoulder, his eyes widening.
Kaelya, still encircled by the ethereal glow of glacial prana, spun sharply, her mouth parting as if the very fabric of the sacred had torn.
Morven's hands, mid-incantation, froze, his spell shattering like glass.
They felt it.
A tremor that was not of this world, a distortion in the very weave of existence.
Deep within VlastMoroz's hidden realm, a place of frozen starlight where time curled inward like ancient frost, her true body stirred.
And deeper still, nestled at the core of that frigid sanctuary like a beating frost-heart, Yandelf let out a low, guttural growl.
She, too, felt the abnormal.
They all felt it.
Not merely the ripple of another Sovereign tearing through the veil into Teyvat—
They felt Asmoday.
The Ruler of Space.
And more piercing, more agonizing than any other sensation—
They felt Orion's soul scream.
Back above Arian, the world held its breath.
Raiclaus halted mid-strike, one foot poised on a lightning bolt, the other suspended in air. She tilted her head, a dark, dangerous amusement twisting her lips.
"...Oh?" she murmured, her voice laced with a predatory glee. "That wasn't thunder. It seems our old nemesis is back."
Mother Rosen blinked once, her composure fracturing just an instant. "...Orion."
"So she's after your people?" Raiclaus asked, her smile widening into a wicked grin. "Does this mean we have to forget about the build-up?"
"Of course it does," Mother Rosen whispered, the words barely audible beneath the escalating storm.
"Pretense has to end sooner than expected."
Their gazes—one wide with ravenous hunger, the other narrowed in ancient dread—turned in unison towards Fontaine.
And far, far away, something fractured.