While time stood still, Su Xuan wrapped both Kong and Riptide in rings of telekinetic light. Only after locking them down did he release the temporal freeze.
The moment time snapped back, Kong lurched forward, face tightening.
"Huh…?"
He glanced down—he was seated on the floor, a glowing ring cinched around his body like a restraint.
"What is this?" he muttered—then a shadow fell across him. He looked up and locked eyes with Lumine.
"Lumine?" Kong blinked.
She lowered her gaze, lips pursed in a distinctly unimpressed pout. "Before the throne sank beneath the Abyss, I had a war with the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles left unfinished," she recited coolly. "I've already traveled this world once. You, too, must reach your own ending—let this land settle in your eyes as it has in mine. We will meet again. There's no need to rush. For us, there's always enough time."
Kong: "?"
Watching his confused stare only made Lumine more annoyed.
While time had been frozen, she'd asked Su Xuan what this meeting would have looked like without him—when she and Dainsleif faced Kong alone. The answer? Kong would've left her with a tangle of cryptic lines, turned his back, and walked away.
Even Su Xuan understood the loneliness of rootless travelers. But Kong? He kept dropping riddles and abandoning her in a strange world.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.
Did he even know she'd nearly been cut down by the Raiden Shogun in Inazuma?
"Lumine, what are you talking about? I don't understand—and what is this ring?" Kong tried to stand, found Riptide trussed beside him, then spotted the group a short distance away: a black-haired man, a horned girl, and a floating white sprite. They spoke in low voices, eyes flicking over every so often.
"You dare ask me?" Lumine put her hands on her hips. "Weren't those the exact lines you planned to feed me when we met?"
Kong stared at Su Xuan—remembering in a rush how the man had crushed the stolen statue, snuffed the Abyssal core, and pinned Riptide. Kong had ambushed him to save his subordinate—and then… this. Bound, seated, baffled.
"Feels weird, doesn't it?" Lumine said. "You made a cool entrance. Blink once, and you're on your butt."
She jerked a thumb toward Su Xuan. "That's my boss. He froze your time so we could actually talk, and tossed on a restraint so you wouldn't stab anyone."
Kong: "?"
Freeze time?
Boss?
"What do you mean, your boss?" His voice cracked. His sister—a Descender—reduced to someone's employee?
"I didn't have a choice," Lumine shrugged. "You found me back in Mondstadt and then ignored me. I had no Mora. So I took shelter with the strongest person I met."
Kong's eyes went wide. "You—sheltered—under a man…" He strained violently against the ring. "Let me out. I'm going to have a talk with him."
Across the chamber, Su Xuan, Ganyu, and Paimon all looked up.
"Why is Lumine's brother glaring at the boss like he's the final boss?" Paimon whispered.
Ganyu lowered her head, embarrassed on everyone's behalf. If your little sister was living under a man you didn't know, you'd panic too.
She turned to Su Xuan. "If you don't mind—could you tell us about Kong? The Abyss Order isn't exactly… charitable. Any plan of theirs that succeeds would be disastrous for the Seven Nations."
Su Xuan caught the half-adeptus' earnest gaze and understood. He smiled, lifted his diary, and wrote.
About our Prince: not so different from Lumine.
Simple at heart. Helpful by nature. Just… unlucky with people.
A chorus of incredulous ladies across Teyvat: No way.
The Abyss' Prince, "simple and helpful"? Then why did every scheme threaten civilization?
But if Su Xuan put it that way, there had to be a story.
Lumine charges head-first into anyone's plea for help.
Kong is the same.
The difference is who they met.
Lumine mostly met people whose requests, however messy, were rooted in good faith.
Kong met Ilmin, the last black king of Khaenri'ah—ambitious enough to topple the gods, careless of the lives beneath him.
Lumine and Kong descended into Khaenri'ah. Kong woke first.
Ilmin discovered a Descender—someone who could rival a world's will and absorb many powers—and rolled out the red carpet. He crowned Kong as Crown Prince.
The twins were searching for a new home. After endless wandering, Kong found a nation that welcomed him like a savior. He accepted. He grew attached. He accepted the title. The hook sank deeper.
Then Ilmin led Kong into the deepest vaults of Khaenri'ah and made him a vessel, drawing Abyssal power through him.
Ilmin overreached. The Abyss surged out of control.
Beast tide.
The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles descended with the Seven. Khaenri'ah fell in a night.
Kong fought his way back from the depths to find only ruins.
He woke his sister. They tried to leave Teyvat.
The Sustainer stopped them and sealed them both.
But something about the Sustainer was… off.
Kong and Lumine should have died, or at least been removed. Instead, their power was stripped—and they were thrown back into Teyvat.
Kong woke first—again—and journeyed with Dainsleif, the "Twilight Sword," one of Khaenri'ah's survivors.
"Wait," Paimon said, blinking. "So Dain traveled with Kong? But now he's hunting Kong."
Ganyu tilted her head. "Dain is to Kong as Paimon is to Lumine?"
"Uh… now's not the time," Paimon mumbled.
"I thought Khaenri'ahns were cursed with undying," Ganyu added softly.
"Hybrids turn into monsters immediately," Su Xuan said. "Pure-blood Khaenri'ahns corrode slowly. Whether that's resistance or a different cruelty of the curse—unclear."
He wrote on.
During that journey, Kong learned the Abyss would destroy this world. He helped many—the Aranara among them.
So why did he join the Abyss later?
Because of Clotar Albarich, a Khaenri'ahn remnant he met in Sumeru.
Clotar showed him his half-blood son Caribert, twisted into a hilichurl. He offered a "solution":
The Loom of Fate—to reweave Teyvat's ley lines and rewrite Khaenri'ahns' destinies with the Abyss' help.
A hush fell over every reader.
"Reweave the ley lines…?" Liuyun Jiefeng Zhenjun muttered, stunned.
To alter ley lines was to tug at the arteries of the world.
Lumine's eyes went wide.
Her brother was playing with extinction-level fire.
Kong noticed her face shifting. "Lumine? What's wrong? Let me go. I'm going to speak to your… 'boss.'"
"Don't fuss," Lumine said flatly. "We'll talk."
Su Xuan continued:
Why did Kong finally return to lead the Abyss Order Clotar had founded?
Words. Clotar's were knives.
He denounced Kong for failing Khaenri'ah as its Crown Prince. He said Khaenri'ah believed in him, believed he could bring them power and hope—because Kong himself embodied the Abyss, the unknown beyond the sky.
"If Khaenri'ah masters the Abyss, it masters everything. And you—Prince—what have you brought us?"
Kong's resolve cracked. He parted ways with Dainsleif. After Clotar died raving, Kong took command of the Order.
Side note: Clotar once "worshiped" a purple crystal that called itself a sinner. After that, he knew about the Loom and turned silver-tongued. I suspect the crystal corroded his mind—to lure Kong back.
In the end, Kong felt he owed Khaenri'ah. He raised the banner—war on the Sustainer.
He even let his Descender's station—the will of a world's equal—fall to become champion of a single nation.
Across Teyvat, women pinched the bridges of their noses.
So that's what Ilmin wanted—if the Abyss hadn't blown up in his face, Kong would've been a gilded pawn until the end.
Anyway, let him make noise. He won't pull off the Loom for years.
And he's not the only Archon-level force eyeing the heavens.
Among the Seven:
Ei hid in the Plane of Euthymia, spooked.
Nahida is tangled in doubt.
Natlan's Mavuika is scratching her head after the Abyss boxed her ears.
The rest? Let's just say none are perfectly reverent.
The two surviving original Archons tacitly permit the Tsaritsa to rebel and even send out their Gnosis in secret.
And it's not just them. Even the Moon Sisters—Heaven's attendants—are poised to rebel.
I suspect that the Sustainer who stopped the twins from leaving may also be moving against "Heaven."
After all, Heaven sleeps; it isn't dead.
If the Sustainer truly served a living Heaven, and she'd captured a Descender like Lumine, why not kill her quickly?
Why return her to Teyvat—so she can fight Heaven for the throne when it wakes?
Lumine: "!!"
—
Wangsheng Funeral Parlor
Hu Tao's plum-blossom eyes blew wide. "Mmm—mmph—mmm—"
Zhongli looked over mildly. "Hall Master?"
She swallowed hard.
So… the Geo Archon had quietly funded the Tsaritsa's rebellion?
If she lost, wouldn't everyone be… audited by Heaven?
Why was everyone rebelling against Heaven anyway? Wasn't Heaven the supreme giver of divine power?
—
Fontaine
A girl in a blue hat stared, unblinking.
"From Su Xuan's tone, even Focalors intends disrespect?" Furina read it three times—Ei, Nahida, Mavuika… no Focalors listed.
"Ehh!?" Her stomach tightened. "But Focalors said if I kept playing Water God, she'd fix the prophecy! How did it become 'defy Heaven' all of a sudden? The prophecy's not even done—she's not about to throw in with the Tsaritsa… is she?"
She hugged herself, shivering.
Teyvat felt like a powder keg—
—and someone had just struck a match.
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