The sun clocked in early today, blazing overhead like it was earning overtime pay.
Inside a normal two-story house, in a room on the second floor, a 18 year old boy sat lazily in his gaming chair.
The curtains were half-drawn, sunlight spilling across the floor and onto his bed.
A laptop rested before him on the table, connected to an external keyboard and mouse. The 'Genshin Impact' loading screen showed its usual white pillars and the sealed door suspended in the sky.
The boy stretched his arms above his head, joints cracking softly.
"Hm… I've already cleared Inazuma and the Chasm to a hundred percent," he muttered. "Guess there's nothing left to do until Sumeru drops."
His name was Arkys.
He was an avid gamer, especially fond of open world RPGs. When 'Genshin Impact' first launched, the story and the gacha immediately hooked him, and he played it endlessly on his phone.
Back then, he did not care about the lag or the constant overheating. But as updates piled on and the game grew heavier, his potato phone finally gave up, forcing him to switch to a laptop.
"Sigh… is there another game to play?" Arky murmured.
He was just about to open Steam and check for any free games when his phone buzzed. A message from his friend, Micky.
Arky picked it up. The moment he saw it, his lips twitched.
It was a screenshot showing two Kazuhas, both pulled in a single 10 pull.
The worst part wasn't even that. This was the second time Micky had pulled double 5 stars in a single pull, and both times it had happened on his alt account.
Ironically, Micky's main account had trash luck, just like Arky's.
Arky glanced back at the Genshin Impact screen, silent for a moment. A thought crossed his mind.
'Maybe… just maybe… starting fresh would change my cursed gacha luck.'
Classes were almost always online, and he had more free time than he knew what to do with.
"Meh. Whatever."
He created a new account.
The game restarted from the beginning.
The familiar opening cutscene played. The twin blondes fought against the so-called Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, or whatever she was called.
Soon, the character selection screen appeared.
After a brief internal debate, Arky chose Lumine for this account. His main account already had Aether.
Then came the name selection.
He paused for a moment, then typed in his original name without the 's'. It already sounded like a nickname.
Arky.
The cutscene resumed.
Aether was captured. Lumine tried to fight back, only to be yeeted away and sealed soon after.
Arky yawned.
Then his eyes widened.
Something was wrong.
From the screen, a cubic, spatial construct began extending outward, reaching toward him. It was the same strange power the woman had used to trap the twins.
"Wha… what?!" Arky froze.
His body refused to move, as though space itself had locked him in place.
Slowly, he shifted his gaze back to the screen.
The white-haired woman on the screen stared directly at him, a faint smirk playing on her lips. Then her expression stiffened as she turned her head, looking behind her.
Arky followed her gaze.
A man stood there.
Long black hair framed a black cloak, while a mask concealed his face.
His entire form flickered, glitching violently, as if the world itself was rejecting his existence. Yet even that could not erase him.
Before Arky could scream, the cubic power snapped shut around his head and body.
Darkness swallowed his vision.
His entire form was compressed into a single cube, pulled violently toward the screen.
The moment it touched the laptop, the display glitched violently.
Then the laptop exploded.
* * *
The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles turned fully toward the man, her gaze fixed toward his white mask.
"You possess considerable guts to reveal yourself before me, Xai'reth," she said. Her eyes burned with a fury she had never shown even against the twins.
"Asmoday, I don't believe I need guts to stand before you… or the other twoShades," Xai'reth replied. His voice was ancient, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Asmoday snorted. "You speak as if you're above the Heavenly Principles, yet you remain just the Fifth Shade. Even if your powers oppose the order of heaven."
Xai'reth shook his head. "I am not here to fight you, Asmoday." He extended a hand. "Give it."
Asmoday did not respond. Three floating cubes drifted closer: one containing Aether, one Lumine, and the last, Arkys.
"Why do you require them?" Asmoday demanded.
"None of your business," Xai'reth replied.
For a heartbeat, they stared each other down.
Then, simultaneously, they moved.
Cube-like spatial constructs shot out from Asmoday, twisting and writhing like eight spider legs, reaching to ensnare Xai'reth.
Xai'reth raised a hand, and instantly the cubes began to glitch, as if they were never meant to exist. Within moments, they blurred, decayed, and vanished completely.
"Tch… Your authority over Entropy should never have existed. You are the antithesis of the Heavenly principles, Xai'reth!" Asmoday's roar shook the air as she surged forward. "Now die!"
The battle raged for minutes. As time passed, her spatial abilities were eroded by Xai'reth's Entropy, her memories starting to fragment under the force of his power.
Finally, she gritted her teeth, a sly smirk forming. "You want these three, don't you?"
The cube containing Aether floated toward her. Xai'reth's eyes narrowed.
Asmoday caught it effortlessly, the space around the cube shuddering, ready to crush it.
In a blink, Xai'reth glitched next to her right side and reached for the cube.
"Got you," she smirked.
She released the cube, allowing Xai'reth to seize it, then struck his outstretched hand with an uppercut of geometrical spatial energy.
Space twisted violently, shredding his arm. The cube in his grasp began to crack under the pull of Entropy, and both arm and cube plummeted toward Teyvat.
Xai'reth's voice rose. "Enough Asmoday. I will end this now."
From within his robe, a black die with six sides appeared, rolling through the air.
Asmoday's eyes widened. "The Die of Probability… How do you have it?"
Xai'reth said nothing. The die rolled erratically through midair before finally coming to rest on six.
"Goodbye, Asmoday," he whispered.
Six invisible strikes hit her: one to her head, scrambling her memories into a constant static, four to her body, leaving her in a permanent state of error, and the last strike reducing her form until she became a small, mascot-like fairy with white hair.
"You shall be named Paimon from now on," Xai'reth intoned. "Five hundred years from now, you will guide that Descender until the day comes to challenge the Heavenly principles."
He sent Lumine's cube and Asmoday toward the sea near Mondstadt. Aether's cube had already vanished earlier, already cracking.
Only Arky's sealing cube remained. Xai'reth looked at his shredded arm.
"Sigh… There's no point in keeping this power. I cannot oppose the Heavenly Principles. Only a Descender can."
He placed a black, gleaming seed from his own heart into the cube, embedding it within Arky's chest.
Then, the die began to float, hovering before sliding into the cube as well.
"Five hundred years from now will be the perfect time to move against Phanes and the Usurper. Until then, sleep, my successor."
He tossed the cube toward Teyvat, aiming near the place where Lumine and Asmoday had been sent.
Xai'reth's form began to glitch violently until he vanished entirely from existence.
Moments later, the remaining two Shades: Istaroth, and Ronova, appeared on the battlefield.
"I've lost Asmoday's presence here," Istaroth murmured, closing her eyes to sense the void left behind.
"She was heading to capture the outsiders, wasn't she?" Ronova asked, narrowing her eyes.
The two Shades fell silent.
Istaroth then invoked her authority over time, peering into the recent past of the battlefield, only for her vision to fracture into glitches and errors.
Ronova's expression twisted in fury as she roared, "Xaaai'reth! You already killed Naberius and hid her heart. Now you have gone after Asmoday as well."
Her voice broke with fury, and the sky itself started to crack, as though it were nothing but a false shell.
Istaroth reacted instantly, reversing time to restore the sky and placing a steady hand on Ronova's shoulder. "Calm yourself, Ronova. Asmoday is not so weak as to fall so easily."
Ronova trembled, then finally exhaled, forcing her anger down.
With one Shade betraying the Heavenly Principles, another dead with her heart missing, Asmoday's fate now uncertain, and the humans of Khaenri'ah reaching for power far beyond their grasp, the days ahead for Teyvat and Celestia promised nothing but chaos.