Genshin Impact: Pool Character, Nirvana of the Demon God

After a moment of deep thought, Yi Ya's eyes flashed, and then a smile appeared on his lips—the solution was already clear in his mind.

"It's true what they say, those involved are often blinded by their own perspective..." She chuckled softly, tapping her temple with her fingertips, her voice tinged with self-deprecation, "The more I learn, the more I forget my most valuable skills."

Before she finished speaking, she slightly twitched her nostrils and paused her breath, having already quietly locked onto that abrupt and incongruous scent deep within the pyramid—like a wisp of cold pine fragrance drifting from the sea of ​​sand, or a wisp of frost rising under the scorching sun. In the scorching red sand and heavy dust environment, it was out of place, yet clearly discernible.

Nature's demons are the embodiment of the weather: storms, thunder and fire, desolation, tides... but ultimately, they are still life.

Life, however, leaves its own indelible marks—body temperature, breath, the slightest heartbeat, and even the faintest trace of the breath of a "living being" that exists outside the laws of nature.

She didn't need to painstakingly decipher the mechanisms or search for hidden paths. Simply following that exotic fragrance, like a hunting dog chasing dew under the moonlight, was enough to reach the core.

Soon, a cool, crisp scent, mixed with rust and ancient dust, entered my nostrils—completely different from the scorching, dry red sand around me.

Flaming wings suddenly unfurled behind her, crimson-gold flames tearing through the darkness. She soared into the air, her figure like an arrow released from a bow, cutting through the wind with incredible speed. Several hidden crossbows ricocheted and stone blades flipped along the way, mechanisms humming as they began to operate, but she had already vanished, leaving only a scorching trail hanging in mid-air. The mechanisms hesitated for a moment, then slowly fell silent, as if they had never been disturbed, since they had not triggered the detection threshold.

She walked on until she entered a magnificent and spacious hall. The dome was high and far, and the sandstone pillars stood silently, with a silence and pressure that had not dissipated for thousands of years floating in the air.

Her gaze didn't immediately fall on the person on the throne, but rather past his straight back, landing behind the throne—

A colossal skeletal dragon coiled atop it, its skeletons piled high like mountains, its spine winding like broken star trails; its head held high, level with the man on the throne, deep within its eye sockets, eerie blue flames burned silently, yet seemed to devour all light. Its stark white bones, warm and smooth as ancient jade, gleamed with a restrained yet chilling light in the darkness; its wings folded behind it, each wing bone etched with the marks of a thousand years of wind erosion.

The outline—exactly the same as the shadow she had seen tearing through the sky in the most violent moment of the sandstorm.

On the throne, the man sat silently, as still as an abyss. His white hair cascaded down his shoulders like a frozen waterfall, gleaming with a cold silver luster in the inky darkness, obscuring his brows and eyes, but not his scarlet pupils—unfathomable, like embers that had burned out, or like raging flames of karma; his jawline was sharp as if carved by a knife, and his thin lips were tightly pressed together, as if sealing the silence of the entire ruins.

Iya's gaze lingered on the bone dragon for a long time.

People might mistakenly believe that it was the king's mount, retinue, or even servant...

But she knew it wasn't.

It was a near-equal silence—no bowing, no submission, only two ancient wills standing side by side at the end of time, each bearing the weight of a withering world.

She finally confirmed:

This colossal dragon, crowned with bones and breathing with desolation, lies beneath the throne; it is one of the nature demons she has sought throughout her journey across the desert, shattering illusions—

The Desolate Demon God.

……

On the other side lies Aru Village, where the wind whispers through the sand and camel bells occasionally ring.

With Al-Hysen's calm and meticulous guidance, the group finally saw through the mystery—the villager named Shani had not intentionally lied during the earlier questioning, but rather acted out of an almost instinctive sense of self-preservation.

She feared that once the truth came to light, it would completely shatter her already fragile and peaceful life.

So, guided by Elhesen, Ying and Paimon once again found Shani's low, quiet little house with a thin layer of yellow sand on the window frames.

This time, there were no questions, only patience and sincerity.

Shani lowered her eyes for a long time before finally speaking slowly—it turned out she was a mixed-race woman, born with blood from both the desert and rainforest peoples, standing between the two lands:

The desert sees her as "a grain of sand damp with moisture," while the rainforest sees her as "a withered leaf swept away by the wind."

In Aru Village, she had neither a family genealogy to follow nor an ancestral hall to return to, and even the most ordinary cooking smoke seemed to drift around the roof of her house.

Years of estrangement and silence gradually seeped into her very being.

She stopped speaking, not because she couldn't, but because she didn't want to; she couldn't hear others, not because she was deaf, but because her heart had built high walls around it; her gaze was lowered, not because she was blind, but because she had deliberately closed the window to the world.

I only seek a corner of peace, even if that peace is as thin as a cicada's wing and as light as dust.

That is why she chose to remain silent when radical Red King followers ran rampant in the village in the name of faith;

Even when the village guardian who had silently protected her disappeared, she gritted her teeth and buried her fear and doubt deep in her heart.

That wasn't indifference, but the only dignity the weak could cling to in the storm. This was Shani's tragedy, silent yet weighing a ton.

However, when Ying knelt down, looked her straight in the eyes, and covered her cold hand with her warm palm;

When Paimon gently handed over a candied fruit he had brought from Liyue, saying, "A little sweetness will give you the strength to believe in tomorrow"—the long-sealed door to his heart finally made a subtle yet clear sound of loosening.

She decided to give it a try. She believed that these strangers before her might truly be the wind that dispersed the millennia-old dust and awakened the sleeping oasis.

She whispered to everyone that her hearing was extraordinary; she could detect the most subtle vibrations in the wind with the slightest twitch of her ear.

In recent nights, a faint, intermittent weeping sound, as if seeping from the depths of the earth, has been quietly emerging around midnight.

"Ah! A...a ghost?!" Paimon jumped in shock, instinctively spreading his arms to reach out to Iya for support—

Looking around, all that remained were empty eaves and the deepening twilight. Only then did she realize that the little one who always loved to cuddle with her was not there at the moment.

Xia Ni gazed at the willows swaying in the evening breeze outside the window, her voice as soft as a whisper: "Perhaps... I can't say for sure."

"But the crying was real—faint, seemingly far yet near, as if it carried burning longing, boundless loneliness, and... a long-forgotten plea."

Her fingertips unconsciously traced the edge of the ceramic bowl: "In the past, it was clearer, more frequent, almost every night."

“But since the day you stepped into Aru Village, it has been quietly receding, its volume gradually weakening, its frequency becoming less frequent… Now, I have to hold my breath and concentrate to barely catch a faint echo in the deepest, most silent place.”

After listening in silence, Al-Hysen nodded in agreement: "I have already verified this matter. Among the night watchmen in the village, there is indeed an old man with exceptional hearing who has also heard similar sobbing late at night."

He paused briefly, his gaze calm as an ancient well, "But—this is a vast desert, where wind and sand engulf everything and are accustomed to distorting sounds."

"He preferred to believe it was the long howl of a lone wolf in the wilderness rather than readily label it as a 'ghost'."

The wind swept across the eaves, stirring up fine sand with a soft rustling sound, as if the entire village was holding its breath, listening to the unrevealed echo from afar.

[A chill ran down my spine when I read this. A couple of days ago, I heard a cat screaming pitifully downstairs when I was watching a scene from the movie in the early morning...]

Those ears are amazing...

Look at Paimon's terrified expression. I've never seen her afraid of ghosts before... Seriously, are there really ghosts in Teyvat?

[↑If there were no ghosts, what do you think would appear in the Walnut Legend quest?]

Ying turned slightly to the side, her gaze as clear as a spring falling on Xia Ni, her voice soft and calm: "Can you be sure of the source of that voice?"

Xia Ni gently shook her head, her fingertips unconsciously brushing a strand of hair that had been lifted by the wind from her forehead, and whispered:

"There's really nothing special about this area."

"If I had to point out something unusual, it would probably be that long-abandoned hospital on the west side of Aru Village."

Upon hearing this, Elhesen's fingertips paused briefly on the edge of the page, and a restrained light flashed in his eyes as he looked up: "It is true."

"According to my research, there was once a healing center in the depths of the desert that specialized in treating demon scale disease—but it was completely shut down more than ten years ago, and there has been no trace of it since."

Ying's eyes lit up, and her tone was firm and decisive: "Then let's go there immediately."

Paimon immediately circled around her, his voice clear and cheerful: "Yes, yes, yes! Maybe the clue is hidden there!"

Al-Hysen neither agreed nor disagreed, only nodded and smiled, his composure as serene as the wind sweeping across the sand dunes.

The three then set off, heading into the heart of the desert in the fading sunlight. The distance wasn't far; in less than half an hour, a greyish-white building quietly appeared at the edge of the dunes—

The walls are mottled, the window frames are crooked, and vines climb over the rusted iron gates like dark blood vessels. The entire hospital stands silently, like an isolated island forgotten by time.

“It has been abandoned for a long time, and that’s no exaggeration.” Elhesen stepped forward slowly, his fingertips brushing against the blurred plaque on the lintel. “Look at this moss, this rotten wood, these traces of monsters lurking among the pillars—it has long been a den of night stalkers.”

Before the words were finished, the shadowy figure suddenly moved.

The three worked in perfect harmony, their sword light intertwining and bursting forth with elemental power, causing the monsters to scatter with mournful cries.

Then Al-Hysen bent down to examine the door lock mechanism closely, lightly touching a few hidden patterns with his fingertips. A dull mechanical sound rang out, and the rusty iron door slowly opened inward, raising a cloud of dust.

The hospital was dark and gloomy inside, with medicine cabinets overturned, medical records scattered on the floor, and old, yellowed slogans exposed where the paint had peeled off the walls.

They searched floor by floor: the examination room, the pharmacy... The sound of their footsteps echoed repeatedly in the empty corridor, but they still couldn't find any clues related to the mysterious voice.

Paimon floated in mid-air, hands on her hips, her tone tinged with grievance and doubt: "Elheisen, you wouldn't... guess wrong, would you?"

"We found Shani because of your advice, and then we followed her directions all the way here!"

Al-Hysen remained calm and composed, taking out an ancient leather-bound book from his robes and gently blowing away the thin layer of dust from the cover. His tone was even and resolute: "Shani said that the voice only rang out at night. Clues may not necessarily appear during the day—patience is sometimes closer to the truth than deduction."

Having said that, he walked straight to a relatively intact oak table in the center of the hall, wiped the chair clean, sat down comfortably, opened the book, and the words sank into silence like a stream.

Paimon leaned closer curiously, blinking rapidly: "Hey? What book are you reading? You seem so engrossed?"

Ehrlich slightly raised his hand, tilting the pages of the book towards her—the gilded title was faintly visible in the dim light: "On the Motion of Nature, First Draft".

Paimon cleared his throat and struggled to read: "Uh... '[Natural position], that is, the position that [natural motion] tends to, as opposed to [forced motion]... Every object... can only naturally tend to...'"

Before she could finish speaking, she clutched her forehead and spun around on the spot: "Buzz—I'm so dizzy! Why are these words dancing?!"

Elhesen raised his eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips, his voice calm and undisturbed, yet devoid of any sarcasm: "You read... a little haltingly?"

Paimon rolled over and hid behind Ying, waving his hand as if shooing away a mosquito: "I surrender! You can ponder this slowly... Bye-bye, don't bother seeing me out!"

Ying gazed at the open book, her eyebrows slightly raised, a thoughtful ripple appearing in her eyes.

The sentence Paimon had just recited was strikingly similar to a classical physics treatise she had read in a world outside of Teyvat—

No, strictly speaking, they are exactly the same, just worded differently, but the logic is the same.

She lowered her gaze quietly, her heart stirred: Truth is never confined to the boundaries of the world. As long as humanity looks up at the stars and questions the laws of nature, the same order will eventually be written in different languages ​​in the same world.