Under Su Xuan's lead, the two left The Chasm and in a blink alighted at Nantianmen, beneath a towering tree whose tip glimmered an eerie blue.
Keqing tilted her face up. "This one's called the Dragon-Queller Tree."
[Dragon-Queller Tree.jpg]
[As Liyue's Yuheng, Keqing once walked the whole of Liyue to measure its lands. The work ethic? Impeccable…]
Keqing straightened, quietly proud.
[Same as our adorable Ganyu—born to be a tireless workhorse.]
Ganyu, somewhere far away, shyly rubbed her horns. "Su Xuan… even now you're teasing me…"
Paimon snickered. "Means you live in his head, rent-free."
Keqing's eyes slitted. "Not everyone's as broken as you, walking around and having people shove money at you."
Su Xuan pinched Keqing's cheek, then added, almost idly:
[Don't be fooled by the name—this 'tree' is actually Azhdaha's tail… or rather, his tail fused with it.]
Keqing's eyes popped. "This tree is… the Dragon King's tail?"
He nodded. "Want to touch it? Rare chance to pat a Dragon King's tail."
Keqing immediately hid behind his arm. "Let's not. He was once Liyue's hero—helped the Archon fight and win. That'd be disrespectful."
"You never used to respect gods," Su flicked her nose.
"Then was then, now is now," she said, composed. "Changing your mind is also progress, isn't it?"
Since today's whirlwind, the truth had set like stone in Keqing's chest: in a world ruled by the extraordinary, power is the one honest currency. A man like Su didn't "work"—he willed, and the world obliged. If others wanted their ideals to breathe, they had to ask him.
She'd understood the price of asking the moment he'd handed her that… "uniform." To be blunt, given his strength and status, trading help for pleasure was mercy. If he had simply pressed her down… what temper could she have afforded?
Wind skimmed cold across the ridge. Keqing's heart kicked. Light gathered around her; her body rose, buoyed in midair within a telekinetic sheen.
Deep below the Dragon-Queller Tree, stone pillars groaned.
A pair of crimson eyes snapped open in the dark.
Crack— fissures spidered across the prison. A gigantic shape stirred, pushing to its feet.
"Morax… Morax…" the Dragon King rumbled, mind fogged—yet sensing the seal weakening.
Pillars burst like dry reeds. The cage fell apart in a rain of rubble.
"Morax's seal… broken? Has something happened to him?" A sane thought flashed—then drowned beneath a roar.
"Heh-heh-heh—FREE!"
For centuries he had probed at the bindings, even splitting off a little-girl phantom to beg passersby to unseal him—only to be ignored as a madman. Now the fetters were truly gone.
"Morax! A thousand years of grievance. It's time—"
The hills around the tree collapsed. Earth split; the Dragon-Queller sank as the ground heaved.
With a sound like mountains grinding, a shadow as tall as a range forced its way up from the depths.
Keqing's breath hitched. This time, unlike Osial's distant spectacle, the Dragon King was right there—barely dozens of meters away. A single glance into those burning eyes clenched her lower belly tight.
[Fat-daha.jpg]
[Erosion has mauled him—he's smaller than before. No matter. Once I clean him up, I'll have him show off properly for a new photo.]
Every girl reading found herself unconsciously leaning back from the image's pressure. Even shrunken, the thing was a moving mountain.
In the Jade Chamber, Ningguang asked softly, "At his peak…?"
Cloud Retainer sighed. "Several times larger. Tianqiu Valley's furrows? His body ploughed them in that last, eroded rampage."
Back in Liyue Harbor, Zhongli stared into his empty teacup, still smarting from Hu Tao's new five-figure tab limit, when the earth tremor rolled through. He rose at once.
"A familiar aura… Azhdaha?"
Nantianmen.
Azhdaha lifted one titanic leg—
—and then the world flipped.
In the space of a heartbeat, his vision spun from earth to star-packed sky. He crashed down supine, stubby limbs bicycling uselessly.
"Too noisy," Su said, almost bored. "Be good, Fat-daha."
The Cosmos Mirror bloomed behind him; its surface reflected a white expanse—dragon belly—as if the world had been picked up and turned palm-over.
Across the diaries, laughter bubbled.
"Pfft—so this is Liyue's Dragon King? He looks like a beach-ball Hilichurl—look how white the tummy is!" Furina squealed, terror already forgotten.
Big talk a minute ago; next second, one wrist-twist and the mountain is a turtle. That's Su.
Pinned in the Mirror's light, the Dragon King shuddered—and then relaxed. Something soothed through scale and stone.
"…This feeling… this scent… the land's memories… Liyue, bright as constellations…"
Clarity flooded back. Morax—no, Morax couldn't cleanse erosion. This other one had erased the gnawing madness with a casual wipe.
A gentle force rolled him over. He thumped down on four feet, humbled.
"You cleared my erosion… Who are you?"
"Doesn't matter who," Su said, hovering. "Cloud Retainer asked. I obliged."
He glanced to the horizon. "Morax is on his way. What's left is between you two. I'm done here. Till next time."
Keqing could only stare. This was a real powerhouse: do the job, leave the stage. Just like with Dvalin—bind, cleanse, a line or two, gone with the wind.
By the time she came back to herself, they were already in Su's courtyard.
"What's got you so quiet the whole way back?" he asked.
"N-nothing," she yelped, turning her back. He arched a brow, reached out.
"Inspection time. Did the big scary dragon make you… leak? Be honest."
Keqing hopped onto the table's edge, legs swinging, eyes bright with mischief. "If he'd fired off five elements at once, maybe. But he popped out and you immediately flipped him like a beetle. A mountain with four stubby legs? Sorry—I wanted to laugh."
Su stroked his chin, faux-regretful. "Too efficient. Tsk. My mistake."
"You're awful," she puffed, cheeks bulging. "You just want to see me make a fool of myself…"
A beat; then, in a whisper: "Anyway… because you kept dragging me around in the sky, and the night wind was cold, I might've… caught a little chill. So perhaps you should do a check…"
Su blinked. Telekinetic shielding… and a draft? He stared.
Keqing the Cat: I have a sniffle. There's a huge problem with your theory, sir.
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