After leaving the Vanarana Garden, one question still lingered in Lora's mind. What exactly had Dottore and Scaramouche used as the core to bear divine power? No matter how much she thought about it, she could not make sense of it.
She could clearly sense that Scaramouche possessed the power of thunder. That power could not possibly have come from the Gnosis of the Dendro Archon. Besides, the Akademiya would never have allowed Scaramouche to take away the Gnosis, which maintained the stability of the Akasha.
If the Gnosis had not made Scaramouche a deity, then what had?
Carrying that doubt with her, Lora returned to the city.
Alhaitham and the others had already begun putting their plan into action, and Lora found Nahida with hardly any effort. At that moment, Nahida was in the Grand Bazaar, waiting for the final outcome.
"If nothing goes wrong, all of the Akademiya's Corps of Thirty mercenaries will be brought here to the Grand Bazaar. Once that happens, the Akademiya will have no power left to resist, and we'll be able to take control of the Akasha again without much trouble," Nahida said as she stood there talking to Nilou.
"I'm so excited to be part of a plan like this!" Nilou said eagerly. "You have no idea how nervous I was when I was dancing in front of the Akademiya just now!"
"You did very well, Nilou," Nahida said, praising her.
Lora walked over and asked, "How is the plan going?"
"Everything is going smoothly, Auntie," Nahida said with a smile.
As soon as Nahida finished speaking, a large number of the Corps of Thirty rushed in from outside the Grand Bazaar. But before they could react, even more Eremites appeared behind them.
The moment they realized they had been surrounded, the mercenaries were thrown into panic.
"How did this happen? How did you people get in here?"
Nahida watched them quietly. These were the people tasked with defending the city, yet they had been surrounded this easily. She could not help feeling a little regretful.
Could people who had been trapped so easily really shoulder its defense? These men no longer thought for themselves. They only believed whatever was issued through the Akasha.
After a brief silence, Nahida looked at them and said gently, "Everyone, from this moment on, I hope you will stay here peacefully. Don't worry. Once everything is over, I will release all of you."
Hearing Nahida's words, the members of the Corps of Thirty looked at one another. Their gazes turned toward Nahida, Lora, and the others standing on the stage, but in the end, all eyes settled on Nahida.
"L... Lesser Lord Kusanali!"
That single cry sent a wave of fear through most of them.
Every one of them looked at Nahida in terror, afraid that she might seek revenge on them.
Seeing their reaction, Lora let out a helpless sigh.
Nahida sighed inwardly as well, but there was nothing she could do about it. She turned to Lora and said, "Auntie, let's go."
"Alright."
Lora and Nahida left the Grand Bazaar and headed for the Akademiya. With the Corps of Thirty no longer in their way, the two of them entered its grounds with ease and arrived at the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
At that moment, Grand Sage Azar was inside the Sanctuary of Surasthana, confirming whether Nahida had truly escaped. When he noticed Nahida and Lora appear behind him, he was stunned.
"Lesser Lord Kusanali?"
Azar stared at Nahida standing beside Lora, then turned to look at the Nahida they had sealed within the core energy. Seeing two Nahidas at once, he could not understand what was happening.
Lora said calmly, "It seems the Grand Sage is not all that clever after all. You still haven't figured it out? That was nothing more than an illusion."
As soon as she finished speaking, Lora raised a hand and gestured toward the Nahida inside the core. The figure slowly dissolved into flowing water and returned to Lora's body.
"A fake!" Azar was even more shocked now. He took a step back and stared at Nahida and Lora with open vigilance.
"How laughable. A Grand Sage, yet you cannot even tell what is real and what is fake. The Grand Sages who once followed Greater Lord Rukkhadevata were never this incompetent."
After mocking Azar, Lora said nothing more and left the rest to Nahida.
Nahida looked at Azar and said softly, "This is the first time we've met like this, Azar."
Azar laughed at that and nodded. "Yes, the first time indeed. I truly never expected this, Lesser Lord Kusanali. To think you could escape both our supervision and the Fatui's surveillance."
"You are far too arrogant. Do you really think human power can control the power of a god?" Nahida asked.
Azar answered at once, "Why not? The Akademiya possesses the greatest wisdom and knowledge in all of Teyvat. We hold power that others could never hope to reach. Creating deities through human wisdom may sound mad, but we have already succeeded!"
"Succeeded?" Nahida slowly shook her head. "No, you have not. What you created is nothing more than a false deity. It has the power of a deity, but none of a deity's true qualities."
"A deity's qualities?" Azar frowned. He was only human. The gods he imagined were merely gods as humans imagined them. Naturally, he could not understand what a god, or rather a Archon, must possess above all else.
Even so, Azar refused to admit he was wrong. In a low voice, he said, "So what? The newborn deity will become Sumeru's new Greater Lord Rukkhadevata in time!"
"Ignorant fool," Lora said coldly.
"This is a conversation between me, Grand Sage Azar, and Lesser Lord Kusanali. You have no right to interrupt," Azar snapped as he turned to Lora.
"She does have the right. She is my aunt," Nahida said to Azar.
"Aunt?" Azar froze for a moment, unable to process what that meant.
Lora continued, "Do you really think you can create a new Greater Lord Rukkhadevata? Every deity is unique. Do you think that simply pouring Canned Knowledge meant for a god into the mind of a new deity would make that deity an [omniscient and omnipotent] Greater Lord Rukkhadevata?"
"How ridiculous. Even Greater Lord Rukkhadevata herself was never truly omniscient or omnipotent."