His purpose had always been clear: explore the truth, obtain power, and achieve his own goals.
Everything else was secondary.
Yet beneath that cold researcher’s shell, a faint and barely perceptible ripple had already begun to spread.
In this frozen land, apart from knowledge and power, something else seemed to be quietly seeping through the icy fortifications around his heart.
Time flowed on, and the polar night and midnight sun of Snezhnaya cycled in turn.
Dottore had spent over a busy and fruitful year in his laboratory deep beneath Zapolyarny Palace.
His research results were remarkable.
The preliminary optimized version of the Delusion had been delivered; its improved stability and performance had won approval from Pierro and even the Tsaritsa herself, and small-scale trials had already begun.
He had also invested some energy into the life alchemy project and made several breakthroughs there as well.
He had successfully multiplied the cellular activity of an ordinary snow pine several times over and guided it into a benign symbiosis with faint Cryo elemental energy.
This achievement exhilarated him and emboldened his ambitions.
He decided to undertake a far more dangerous experiment: attempting to analyze and channel the essence of “soul fragments” or similar consciousness-based energy.
This was the core of his theory for reconstructing the very form of life.
Furthermore, Dottore and Pierro currently maintained a tacit, business-based cooperative relationship, and his relations with three of the other Harbingers could also be considered amicable.
As for the Fourth Seat, Crucabena, the Knave, both sides seemed to keep a deliberate distance.
Aside from necessary official handovers, they had virtually no interaction, and things remained peacefully uneventful.
Yet beneath the calm surface, hidden currents surged.
Late one night, Dottore activated every shielding measure in the laboratory to its maximum capacity.
At the center of the lab, an astoundingly complex alchemical matrix was slowly powering up.
Deep blue energy currents, like living veins, slithered across the metal floor covered in inscribed runes.
Dottore stood before the main console, fully focused on adjusting several key energy conduction nodes.
His fingers flew across a light screen, manipulating the frequency and intensity of the energy output.
This was a pivotal experiment on the “pure extraction of Ley Line energy,” designed to bypass certain restrictions of Irminsul and directly obtain a more primal form of power.
“Energy output stable.
Phase resonance frequency calibrated to 97.8%…
Approaching critical threshold…” he murmured, his fingers tapping rapidly in midair as he manipulated invisible interfaces.
The light in his eyes burned with the fervor of exploring unknown territory.
“Activating consciousness resonance field.
Intensity…
level three.” The experiment had entered its most critical phase.
The energy core, a pure crystal suspended at the center of the matrix, began to emit a blinding light, and the space around it started to warp faintly.
Just as the energy was about to peak and complete the purification…
Boom!
It was not a physical explosion but an indescribable deluge of information, vast enough to crush the soul.
Without any warning, it broke through some boundary and slammed violently into the deepest recesses of Dottore’s consciousness.
A sharp, searing pain tore through his brain, as if countless needles were piercing him at once.
This was no physical attack; it was an impact that acted directly on the mind and awareness.
“No!
Energy overload!
The resonance frequency is out of control!” He fought through the agony, struggling to cut the power.
“Agh…!” Dottore clutched his head, letting out a brief, stifled groan, and collapsed to his knees in pain.
He staggered backward as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer, crashing into the cold metal worktable.
The data pad in his hand clattered to the floor, its screen shattering instantly.
The scene before him began to twist and break apart.
The metal walls of the laboratory seemed to melt, bleeding into chaotic, multicolored blots.
A cacophony of mad whispers, screams, weeping, and maniacal laughter filled his ears, voices from disparate fragments of consciousness violently wrenched awake by the runaway magnetic field.
Just as his mind was about to drown in this torrent of chaos, all the noise and distorted images abruptly vanished.
In their place came a flood of memories, so vivid they suffocated him, a current of icy despair forcibly poured into his mind.
The sky of Teyvat shattered like glass, revealing the pitch-black, malice-filled cosmos beyond.
Immense, indescribable shadows poured in through the cracks, and wherever they passed, mountains crumbled and oceans boiled.
The land of Teyvat lay in ruins.
All around were countless figures, once familiar yet now strange, struggling desperately to resist, but it was like trying to stop a tidal wave with their bare hands.
One after another, they were consumed and obliterated by the shadows.
Deep within Irminsul, whose roots were severed and whose light had faded, he saw another version of himself.
That self was trapped inside a cage formed by the shattered, faintly glowing roots of Irminsul, watching the surface of Teyvat in despair as a surging tide of black “existence” swallowed all matter and energy, polluting what remained of the Ley Lines, utterly powerless to do anything.
The familiar landscapes of the seven nations had crumbled into empty ruins.
The six Archons besides the Dendro Archon, along with the Heavenly Principles and her Four Shades, had all fallen, sacrificing themselves to protect the people of Teyvat.
After the failure of Project Ark, Irminsul was polluted once more.
Nahida knew she could do no more.
As her consciousness faded away, she gathered the last remaining power of all the fallen gods and barely managed to preserve the final Ley Line energy.
Before that Lesser Lord Kusanali in the memory vanished, she left one last message for the other self trapped inside Irminsul: “The final core of energy must be…
preserved…” Upon hearing those words, that other self’s eyes filled with bone-deep despair and a final, unyielding resolve.
He then made a desperate, insane decision.
Using his own body as a vessel and Irminsul as a medium, he forcibly fused with the last Ley Line energy of Teyvat, the energy that Lesser Lord Kusanali had struggled to safeguard.
He gathered the countless “pinpricks of light” that represented the consciousness of all living beings in Teyvat, collecting them like fireflies into himself before they could scatter in the disaster.
The excruciating pain of the forced fusion nearly tore his consciousness apart, but he succeeded.
Carrying these slumbering consciousnesses like a final ember of fire, he broke free from the completely ruined shell of Teyvat and began to drift aimlessly through the cold and lifeless cosmos.
He had thought he would drift forever.
But it didn’t last.
The “void” that had destroyed Teyvat, that nameless darkness, traced the lingering energy signature of Irminsul and pursued him.
It wanted to devour this final energy, to consume those fragile consciousnesses and swell its own power.
“Get away!” the weakened self roared, mobilizing what little strength remained to resist and protect those points of light.
But the darkness was far too powerful.
A treacherous sneak attack pierced through his chest, further ravaging his already ruined body.
His form crumbled and his strength drained away.
He could only watch helplessly as those consciousness lights, those star-like glimmers he had staked everything to protect, were seized by countless dark tendrils, torn and dragged away.
In the end, like candles guttering in the wind, they dissolved into meaningless specks of cosmic dust and were utterly annihilated in the void of the universe.
“No…” That was the final, silent scream from his fading consciousness.
Endless regret, despair, and a cold that seeped into the very marrow of his bones became the coda of this memory, together with the sensation of himself and the last Ley Line being consumed and extinguished by the darkness.
“No…
NO!” Inside the laboratory, Dottore’s eyes snapped open.
His pupils contracted violently, shot through with blood and an unprecedented horror.
He gasped for breath, his research robes soaked through with cold sweat.
His face was as pale as paper.
The long, despairing memory had lasted only a few seconds in the real world, but it had been far too real.
The despair of destruction, the agony of losing everything, and the fury of utter powerlessness, they were all seared into his soul like a brand.