His consciousness followed the connection back to his original body, and Lynn slowly woke up.
"You okay? Um... are you done talking?"
The moment he opened his eyes, Escoffier was still the first to greet him, though there was now a trace of anxiety in her voice.
There had been a few twists this time, but communicating with a macro-level will did not take long. For one thing, communication through consciousness was efficient enough. For another, that sort of thing did not speak in circles. The situation around them had not changed much from before, and the main reason she had stayed by Lynn's side was to watch the show.
But because she had taken Lynn's warning to heart earlier, she had been carefully observing the state of the ship beneath their feet, and she really had noticed that something was wrong—
Even though Lynn had already completely solved the problem of his bad luck, the ship under them had already passed the point of no return before that.
The sea beast had lost the malice driven by the instinctive rejection produced by the workings of the universe, but the wounds left on its body by the ballistae and other weapons had not disappeared. It was still relentlessly attacking the ship, which undoubtedly accelerated the vessel's deterioration.
Lynn understood what she meant.
"Don't worry. Everything's settled."
Escoffier let out a sigh of relief when she heard that.
"Then... should we just run from the back?"
"I checked just now. We're still pretty far from Fontaine, but we're quite close to Bayda Harbor in Sumeru. I can use Cryo to freeze a path. I should be able to hold out until we get there."
She offered her suggestion.
From an ordinary point of view, this was the best plan. Let this doomed-to-sink ship, along with the people on it who deserved to die, help hold the sea beast back while the two of them quietly escaped across the sea on frozen ice. They would not even need to swim.
But Lynn now had a better method, so he gently pressed a hand to Escoffier and refused in a warm voice,
"No need. Watch me."
Escoffier blinked. For a moment, she felt as though she were hallucinating. From the side, she seemed to see a flame-like gleam flash past the corner of Lynn's eye, carrying a scorching heat that felt strangely familiar, like the sacred flame of Natlan.
Hm?
Where had that flame come from?
Still thinking it was just an illusion, Escoffier blinked again, only to see blazing fire erupt from Lynn's body. Scorching heat billowed outward, warping the air and even igniting nearby flammable objects—
Including part of the deck beneath their feet.
Escoffier instinctively drew on Cryo to resist the heat, but then she discovered that the heat, the flames, even the things they had set alight, all seemed to possess a will of their own and deliberately avoided the small area where she stood...
Her eyes widened, and she looked carefully at Lynn. By then, Lynn had already begun gathering and compressing the flames around him, gradually turning them into a dozen or so pale fireballs, each only the size of a baby's fist.
Even just floating there quietly above his hand, they made her instincts scream a warning:
Extremely dangerous!
Yet Lynn still was not satisfied, so the fireballs continued to condense, and their color kept changing.
Most importantly, the flames were not being compressed under the force of some outside pressure. It was more like loyal subjects receiving an order from their sovereign and gathering inward of their own accord.
In the end, the fireballs seemed to have changed in nature altogether, shrinking into tiny, crystal-clear "gems" no bigger than grains of rice.
'Solid Phlogiston?'
'It seems a little different... whatever, I'll study it later.'
Lynn lifted his eyes and looked toward the battlefield where the sea beast was clashing with the others. With a light motion of his finger, the dozen tiny "gems" instantly launched, streaking across the air without making the slightest sound, arriving at their destination in a flash.
Then they exploded.
In an instant, whether it was the enormous sea beast or the humans operating the siege weapons against it, all of them were swallowed by the spreading flames. They were not burned so completely that not even bones remained, but without exception, all life in them was snuffed out.
"Not bad."
Lynn nodded in satisfaction.
He did not see himself as some messenger of justice, but for people involved in the Les sales network, dying in confusion and leaving behind only mangled corpses to sink into the bellies of fish was, in his view, one of the most gratifying ends they could receive.
What, was he supposed to let them babble a few more lines before they died?
Or give them some grand, glorious, crystal-clear death?
What nonsense.
That included Vacher as well. The only reason Lynn had not moved to report or deal with him earlier was because he had been worried that doing so while burdened with his bad-luck constitution would cause problems.
Leaving evil unfinished would only invite endless trouble afterward. Not to mention that if the instinctive workings of the universe took the chance to stir things up and even buff the bastard, that would just be creating a disaster with his own hands.
Now, though, things were different. Lynn had already arranged an ending for Vacher that was roughly similar to the one in the original story. The only difference was that the process would be cut down a lot—a whole lot—and the timing would be brought forward by a great margin.
He hoped Vacher would enjoy it.
"You got a Vision?"
Once Lynn was done on his side, Escoffier came over with shining eyes, her face full of delight as she asked the question.
It was hardly strange that she would think that. Based on her own experiences and the fixed ideas Teyvat's people held, what else could Lynn's performance just now have been, if not obtaining a Vision?
Lynn smiled.
"Not a Vision... though it probably is related in some way. It just takes a bit too much out of me."
While explaining, he had already quietly withdrawn the flames and, through that connection, returned the thing he had relied on to command the flames back to his world-incarnation, leaving it to bear the load.
'Though calling it "takes too much out of me"...'
He felt the state of his body and found that the word "consumption" was not quite accurate.
'Maybe "strain" would be more precise.'
This ability was an unexpected gain born from the consensus he had reached with Teyvat.
As Lynn recalled how he had obtained it, he smacked his lips.
'Teyvat, my bro—you're generous as hell.'
'Once I've grown strong enough later, I'll definitely help you beat the hell out of Phanes. As for exactly how I'll beat them... that'll depend on what their model looks like when the time comes.'
(End of Chapter)
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