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In the days following the end of the Second Teyvat Bubble-Blowing Competition, friends gradually departed from Sumeru, and Nahida sent an invitation at just the right time.
It had been a full month since Nahida promised at the Grand Bazaar celebration banquet to help cleanse his elements. Although Victor Wang wasn't in a rush, he was still very much looking forward to it. However, when he arrived at the Sanctuary of Surasthana, he found that Lumine and Paimon were there as well. It seemed there were other matters to discuss this time.
"You're all free now, right? Sorry about that—there's been so much Akademiya business. I've only just managed to get everything settled on my end."
Paimon wore a troubled expression. "If we ignore the whole collecting Oculi thing, then yeah, we're pretty free… sigh, we can put that aside for now. Nahida, why did you call us here?"
Nahida got straight to the point. "Recently, something has been troubling me. It's about what happened after we defeated The Balladeer… the process of purifying Irminsul… do you still remember it?"
The atmosphere suddenly turned quiet. Victor Wang, Lumine, and Paimon exchanged glances, none of them rushing to speak.
In the end, Paimon answered, "I remember. Forbidden knowledge polluted Irminsul. Five hundred years ago, you exhausted all your power to seal away the remaining pollution, which caused you to lose your memories. After defeating The Balladeer, with the power of the Gnosis of Electro, you undid the seal you left behind, reconnected with the consciousness of Irminsul from five hundred years ago, and then we boarded the Ark of Consciousness to find the polluted portion and successfully erased it."
"But I always feel like it wasn't quite like that…" Nahida gently shook her head. "When helping Aramuhukunda gain new life, and when entering the collective dream constructed by Moseis, I had a very vague feeling—some kind of warm power once supported me."
"Isn't that because you lost your memories?" Paimon asked doubtfully.
Nahida sighed. Confusion and distress gathered on her youthful face as she denied it again.
"There are indeed some blurry fragments in my memory… but I can't explain them.
To put it metaphorically, those blurry memories are like a sheet of paper where the writing has been erased. I can't see the words, only faint traces.
But the Aranara's loss of memory is like a completely blank sheet of paper. The two are entirely different.
So, I searched through my memories from the past five hundred years and discovered that this feeling only appeared after saving Irminsul…
It's like… it's like… perhaps I didn't lose my memories at all… but that my memories were altered…
That would mean someone tampered with Irminsul… that we tampered with Irminsul… what did we do?"
This time, even Paimon fell silent, scratching her head, unsure how to respond.
In the silence, Victor Wang's thoughts became active.
The sense of dissonance caused by altering Irminsul—Nahida, as the Dendro Archon and the one who understands Irminsul the best, was bound to notice it someday. That wasn't surprising. As for whether she could be told the truth, two points had to be clarified.
First: the relationship between the words "forbidden knowledge" and forbidden knowledge itself.
Thousands of years ago, King Deshret was polluted by forbidden knowledge. To this day, both before and after the erasure of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's existence, all people of Sumeru still remember King Deshret, yet no one suffered pollution because of it.
Going further, King Deshret's priests knew he was polluted by forbidden knowledge. Greater Lord Rukkhadevata also knew. Alhaitham, Dehya, Cyno, Rahman, and others who read the records left behind by those priests all knew as well, yet none of them were polluted.
Five hundred years ago, forbidden knowledge appeared again. This time, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata herself was polluted together with Irminsul. In the five hundred years that followed, before her existence was erased, all of Sumeru knew of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's existence, and both the Akademiya and Nahida knew Irminsul was sick—yet none of them were polluted.
Now, after Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's existence has been erased, Nahida still knows that forbidden knowledge polluted Irminsul, and she still has not been polluted.
Therefore, "knowing that forbidden knowledge exists" and "knowing which figures were polluted by forbidden knowledge" are completely different from "knowing the content of forbidden knowledge."
It's like knowing that a book called [Before Sun and Moon] exists is not the same as knowing its contents. As long as one doesn't know the contents, they won't violate the Heavenly Principles' taboo.
Second: what exactly was changed when Irminsul was altered.
There have been two known instances of altering Irminsul. One was Nahida erasing Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's existence. The other was The Balladeer erasing his own existence.
What must be clearly understood is that these two alterations were not both successful.
The Balladeer's alteration was undoubtedly a failure.
Having lost his Gnosis, he lacked sufficient power, and on top of that, he forced the change while defying the paradox stated by Greater Lord Rukkhadevata herself—that one cannot erase oneself.
Although the world did change as a result, The Balladeer as a person still existed. The outcome was the rather absurd situation where everyone's memory of him was erased.
Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's alteration, on the other hand, was undoubtedly a success.
Teyvat is a very complete world. When facing forbidden knowledge, there are ways to deal with it—such as using Divine Nails, or the method Greater Lord Rukkhadevata used five hundred years ago, expending her life's divine power to suppress it. Both were effective.
The reason Greater Lord Rukkhadevata had to sacrifice herself was that she herself was already polluted.
She couldn't summon a Divine Nail to strike herself and Irminsul. She couldn't purify herself while preserving her life. And because she was connected to Irminsul, even death would carry the pollution back to the World Tree. Thus, she had to find a path outside all these methods—that was to erase her own existence.
If her alteration had failed, and she still existed somewhere like The Balladeer, then the pollution of Irminsul could never have been purified.
So, her alteration was unquestionably successful. Although it also achieved "making the world forget me," that was merely a secondary effect of her existence disappearing, completely different from The Balladeer's case.
And because even her existence was gone, retrieving memories about her wouldn't mean retrieving the person herself.
Just like how The Balladeer ultimately recovered his complete memories from before altering Irminsul through the backup Nahida left behind, yet Irminsul did not restore everything he had changed.
What's more, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata is already gone, and no one possesses her memories. At most, one could retrieve "everyone's memories about Greater Lord Rukkhadevata," and those memories do not include "the contents of forbidden knowledge." This circles back to the first point…
From these two points, even if Nahida were told about Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, there would be no need to worry about forbidden knowledge returning.
The only problem is… it shouldn't be me who tells her.
Unaffected by alterations to Irminsul—once I open my mouth, that's clearly the identity of a Descender.
Victor Wang glanced at Lumine, then at Paimon, feeling utterly conflicted.
Maybe I could tell Nahida in private… or maybe I should keep hiding it like this… what choice should I make?
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