The shockwaves rolled through the valley like distant heartbeats.
Eula stopped on the narrow mountain road beneath Starsnatch Cliff. Her breath misted in the cool air. The wind tugged at her cloak as the last explosion shuddered through the stones at her feet.
"That wasn't thunder." Her voice was low. "And it wasn't natural."
She scanned the horizon. The sound had come again, crisp and sharp, from the direction of Starfell Lake. A quiet, harmless lake where fishermen dozed in shade and children skipped stones. No leyline anomalies. No known Abyss activity. Nothing that should roar like that.
Which meant something was wrong.
Eula began moving. Her stride lengthened, heels clicking sharply on stone. She was the Captain of the Knights' Reconnaissance Company. When the land spoke in warnings, she answered. She pushed through the forest trails, hand brushing her claymore's hilt, senses stretched thin across the woods. Each new blast shook dust from the leaves.
"If this continues, the lake's entire ecology will collapse," she murmured. "What in the world is happening out there?"
She cut through the last stretch of trees. Leaves parted.
Starfell Lake opened before her like a wound.
The mirrorlike waters were gone—replaced by chaotic ripples, floating debris, and burned reeds. The shoreline was cratered. Scorched soil steamed. Rocks were cracked as if someone had struck them with a hammer of fire and hatred.
Eula's breath froze in her chest.
The explosion sites were recent. Minutes old. The heat still clung to the stones. When she touched one—lightly, with gloved fingers—the leftover energy stung her skin.
Not normal.
Definitely not Vision-based.
Her eyes narrowed.
"There's fire residue," she whispered. "But something else too. Something… colder."
She focused. Behind the fire's chaos lay a second signature that felt entirely foreign. A hostile resonance. Destructive and precise. As if the world had been asked a question and answered by tearing itself apart.
Eula straightened, cloak shifting around her shoulders.
"This isn't fire element," she said. "This is something far more violent."
The implications rippled outward like the lake's disturbed waters. No ordinary citizen had this kind of power. No Hilichurl tribe possessed anything similar. The Abyss used cold, corruption, and entropy, not blazing annihilation. This—this was different.
"Jean needs to know."
She unfastened the small brass whistle from her belt, lifted it to her lips, and let out a sharp note that cut across the forest canopy.
Moments later, a grey Hawk of Mondstadt descended and perched on her arm with confident precision.
Eula wrote quickly:
"Severe explosive disturbance detected at Starfell Lake. Traces of unknown destructive energy. Not elemental. Highly dangerous. — Eula."
She tied the note to the hawk's leg and raised her arm. The bird launched skyward, cutting across the blue toward Mondstadt.
When it vanished, she exhaled a slow breath and surveyed the land.
The danger was still close.
The residual heat lingered too strongly. The destructive signature clung to the earth as if the source had only just left. Someone—or something—capable of wielding this force was standing on Mondstadt's doorstep.
Eula stepped closer to the water's edge and crouched, fingers hovering over a deep crater in the mud. The shape suggested an airburst, not a ground detonation. Controlled, not random. Whoever did this knew how explosions worked.
A technique, not an accident.
Her jaw tightened.
"This is a threat to Mondstadt. I'm staying until I find the cause."
She rose, brushing dust from her cloak, and began inspecting the footprints around the lake—small ones, lighter and erratic, like a child's. Larger ones beside them. No sign of hostile creatures. Whoever created this destruction… had walked away calmly.
The eerie quiet made her grip her claymore tighter.
Something was out there, and it was powerful enough to boil a lake.
Eula followed the trail into the forest, breathing steady, steps silent.
"Whoever you are," she said, voice dropping to a whisper, "you won't hide for long."
The wind carried away her words, but the lake behind her kept steaming, its surface trembling with the aftershocks of unfamiliar power.