Hidden a hundred meters beneath Chinvat Ravine was the Akasha God-Creation Workshop.
It was also the legendary workshop where Teyvat’s first artificial god, “Shouki no Kami, the Prodigal,” would be born in the future.
Arranged by the Harbinger Dottore for secrecy, three layers of Akasha mazes were set up outside the workshop.
They could twist the flow of ley lines, causing intruders to walk in circles on the spot, so that not even the Aranara’s dream powers could penetrate them.
Moreover, every step of the stone staircase had been tampered with by Dottore, carved with runes capable of masking presence.
Even a Vision holder couldn’t smell the slightest elemental fluctuation.
It could be said that even someone as strong as Harbinger Childe would end up walking in circles until he starved to death in some corner.
Unless…
you had cheats.
Inside the dim passage:
Daigan walked down the stone steps.
The pale blue light point shone steadily in front of his eyes without the slightest deviation.
His pace wasn’t fast; when he closed his eyes and turned up the background audio, he could even hear the faint hum coming from beneath the steps.
Presumably, that was the sound of the Gnosis resonating with the God-Creation Project or whatever.
Every step here was strangely bizarre.
The surrounding air grew colder and colder, so cold it felt as if it had been soaked in Snezhnayan ice—too bad Daigan couldn’t feel it.
Tiny blue light specks floated in the air—slight escaped radiation that felt like pricking needles when touching skin—too bad Daigan couldn’t feel it.
He walked for a long time, often taking roundabout paths on the spot.
But this wasn’t because he was lost; Dottore had used unknown methods to design this path to the workshop specifically to induce the illusion of being lost and taking a wrong turn.
A distance of merely a hundred meters from the outside world felt endless inside this maze.
Daigan’s stamina bar drained slowly.
He occasionally paused to check whether the tracking guide on the ground had disappeared.
Sometimes even when the path itself vanished, the guidance marker remained.
With the map marker present, he didn’t need to ponder how hidden the path was, nor did he need to care whether there were dangerous traps.
As long as the marker remained, the path he took was 100% correct.
He remembered back when it was pixel graphics, navigating was even simpler.
Teyvat’s seven nations only had seven big maps total.
Traveling across nations just took a single click on an icon, unlike now where he had to physically run there.
Occasionally, blurry shadows flickered past along the way, and the game would stutter briefly, but as long as it didn’t disrupt his sprint, he just treated them as background elements.
Thus, under a certain person’s gaze:
That monstrous Harbinger was like someone using a cheat code, letting traps pass right by him, his footsteps constantly heading in the direction of the guidance marker, as precise as a train locked onto its tracks.
After walking for an unknown duration, a violet-gold light finally leaked out from ahead.
The light grew brighter and more intense, and the resonance of the Gnosis’s immense energy became increasingly clear—so loud that he didn’t even need to turn up the background sound to hear it distinctly.
When Daigan stepped off the last stone step, his vision suddenly widened.
Under the glaring incandescent light:
Before him was a vast underground dome.
Suspended at its center was a purple-glowing Akasha Core, from which countless glowing blue conduits extended down to a silver-white God-Creation Altar below.
Standing beside the altar was his target for this trip:
Scaramouche.
*Bang!*
Without the slightest hesitation, Daigan kicked open the heavy stone doors of the workshop.
As shattered stones flew everywhere, he stood at the entrance holding his cold-glowing sword.
Snowmelt mixed with rainforest mud dripped from his cloak, while the damaged clothing on his arms had long been restored to pristine condition by time.
His gaze locked with absolute precision onto the two figures at the God-Creation Altar.
His tone remained steady and terse.
“Scaramouche.
The Tsaritsa sent me to get an explanation from you.”
[Entering Cutscene]
The moment the heavy doors were smashed, Scaramouche looked over.
That weird man had stood in an improper place at an improper time in an utterly illogical manner.
The expression on Scaramouche’s face instantly froze.
The joy in his eyes from listening to Dottore’s big promises instantly turned sharp as a blade.
Electro element crackled at his fingertips.
He stared fixedly at Daigan, his tone dripping with unbelievable malice:
“How did you find this place?!”
They had laid so many preparations in Sumeru City.
Set up so many diversions in the Akademiya.
Even the Grass God had given up acting as bait.
They had specially relocated to Chinvat Ravine, a desolate wasteland where the workshop was shrouded in three layers of confusion arrays.
How on earth did this weirdo—who possessed no Akasha Terminal and had never studied Sumeru’s complex topography—penetrate layer after layer of barriers and barge straight in here?
“Dottore!
Didn’t you say this place was sealed behind a confusion array until the plan succeeded?!” Scaramouche shouted angrily toward Dottore.
Meanwhile, Dottore’s segment turned around slowly.
Red eyes beneath his mask flashed with wonder.
His fingers stroked his terminal as he spoke in a cold, inquisitive tone:
“Fascinating.
I wiped all Akasha records regarding this location, and shielded all ley line information.
By all logic, before the God-Creation plan succeeded, this place shouldn’t exist in Teyvat at all.
Mr.
Daigan, how did you find your way here…?”
Before he finished speaking, Daigan had already stepped forward.
The moment his toes lightly tapped the air, he disappeared from his original spot.
His figure flashed toward Shouki no Kami at blinding speed.
“Dottore!
Stop talking nonsense and block him!”
Seeing that Daigan’s target was the Gnosis, Scaramouche panicked and immediately channeled elemental power, flying toward him.
Dottore, however, remained where he stood with no intention of taking action.
“Heh heh.
Strolling leisurely through my array, executing every step with absolute precision without a single error, perfectly avoiding every trap and danger…
It’s almost as if someone is guiding him.”
The corners of his mouth curved up slowly.
Ignoring Scaramouche’s bewildered gaze, he continued:
“Although this array was hardly my full effort, in this world, I am the only one capable of seeing through it.”
Hearing this, both men thought it sounded completely absurd.
How could this guy be so ridiculously arrogant?
“Hand over the Gnosis.
Out of respect for past acquaintance, I will spare your life.”
By now, the two had closed the distance.
Daigan swung his sword in a probing slash, while the flying Scaramouche coated his right foot in elemental power and delivered a ferocious flying kick.
*Clang!*
The impact felt like striking solid steel, followed by a terrifying surge of force.
An air vortex detonated directly at the center of their clash.
The terrifying gale generated by the sheer force blew Dottore’s coat tail fluttering a hundred meters away.
“What’s going on?”
Scaramouche’s foot froze against Daigan’s sword.
Feeling the strength transmitting through the blade, the expression on his face froze for a moment, followed by unexpected, wild ecstasy.
“Ngh…
Hahaha!
So you aren’t as strong as I imagined after all?!”
With wild joy on his face, Scaramouche retracted his right foot and stomped his left foot down instantly.
His foot, hard as steel, slammed down like a massive sledgehammer.
Daigan’s legs buckled; he almost collapsed.
Seeing this, Scaramouche immediately sneered:
“You truly have neither heart nor strength!”
*Bang!*
Terrifying pressure crashed down once more.
Daigan’s expression shifted.
He immediately switched to a two-handed grip on his sword, shifting from offense to defense.
Scaramouche’s left foot stomped onto the blade, forcing both of Daigan’s feet into the ground.
Just now, both had charged their attacks, so they appeared evenly matched in force.
But Scaramouche could fly; in midair, he could spin his body at any time to execute a full-power stomp.
Daigan, stuck on the ground, could not.
In this clash, Scaramouche clearly held a massive advantage.
“Hahaha!
Miserable rat!”
*Bang!*
Scaramouche switched feet and stomped again.
Daigan’s body sank lower; his two-handed grip on the sword had turned into using both hands just to prop it up.
“Heh heh…
Where is your strength now?
Why have you become so weak!
Weren’t you enjoying shoving me back and forth earlier?!”
Scaramouche kicked again and again, repeatedly stomping onto the sword held across Daigan’s chest.
Amid bursts of explosive shockwaves, Daigan’s feet dug into the ground as he was pushed back continuously.
“Haha!
Block again!
Can you block this?!
Daigan!
Struggle like a dying bug for me!”
Looking at Daigan struggling bitterly beneath his feet, Scaramouche felt elated.
Previously, he had merely wanted to chat with him, only to be pushed back and forth seven or eight times in front of the palace gates within two seconds like a newly hatched quail, with the final push sending him flying several meters away.
Though being treated like that had cost him all his dignity and made him want to skin that offender alive, that terrifying force and that feeling of utter helplessness had burned themselves deeply into Scaramouche’s heart.
The pressure brought by those thick, calloused hands touching his shoulders was a hundred times more terrifying than facing Beelzebul herself—that completely incomprehensible, overwhelming power…
Unreasonably shoving him back and forth like a ball!
That humiliation was something he had remembered to this very moment!
“Now I’ll make you taste what it feels like to be kicked around like a ball!”
Scaramouche clenched his fist tightly, the pressure of Electro element sweeping through the entire chamber.
He bypassed the Rancour, switching from attacking to locking, his legs firmly hooking around the Prototype Rancour.
Mere scrap metal—not even as sharp as his fingers.
“Cough…”
Daigan’s sword was tightly locked by Scaramouche’s legs and forced downward.
As the Prototype Rancour was pressed down, Daigan’s strained expression was exposed.
“Hahaha!
An ant dares to compete with me?!”
He clenched his fist and slammed it violently toward Daigan, whose front was completely exposed.
*Bang!*
Daigan’s feet were ripped from the ground, and he was launched like a cannonball, embedding into the wall in the direction he had come from amid a cloud of dust.
“Ha…”
Looking at the battered Daigan, Scaramouche took a breath, joy filling his face as a low, cold laugh emerged from his throat.
“An explanation?
How is this explanation, Daigan?!”