Qian Daoliu's Dao Heart Shattered

The night wind swept over the scorched, chaotic rocky hill, carrying the damp scent of grass and trees peculiar to the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest.

Her beautiful eyes, clear and translucent as amethysts, stared fixedly at the black-haired youth crouching before her. His long, warm fingers were gently tilting up her delicate chin.

The warmth of his fingertips was almost scalding, carrying a majesty and an affinity that made her tremble faintly in the depths of her soul.

Those utterly contradictory sensations intertwined, leaving Lady Yuheng, who had always acted with lightning speed and kept men at an absolute distance, flustered and at a loss for the first time in her life.

"H-how dare you!"

Keqing clenched her teeth in embarrassed anger and tried to turn her head away from Chu Yuan's touch. "Take your hand off me! I am Yuheng, one of the Liyue Qixing. Even in a desperate situation, I would never accept the advances of someone whose origins I don't know!"

Before she had finished speaking, an even more violent surge of Soul Power from the world of Douluo poured in through the torn neckline of her gown.

"Mmgh-!"

A muffled, pained moan escaped Keqing's throat against her will.

The Electro Vision hanging from her skirt at her waist burst into a spray of dazzling purple sparks. Then, with a sharp crack, another deep, shocking fissure appeared across its amethyst surface, which was already covered in a spiderweb of cracks!

Without the protection of the Statues of the Seven on Celestia or the nourishment of Teyvat's native elemental Ley Lines, every strand of Electro power within her was being treated by Douluo Star's plane consciousness as heresy that had to be eradicated.

The violent purple lightning ran completely out of control throughout her slender limbs and bones, turning into countless fine, searing arcs that spread down her fair, graceful neck and past her deep, delicate collarbones.

"Crackle..."

As the arcs danced, several more threads snapped across the chest of her purple-black gauze gown, already torn by spatial turbulence, revealing a breathtaking glimpse of smooth, snowy skin and deep cleavage.

The dark purple tights covering her long, beautiful legs curled and tore under the searing, unruly lightning. Broad stretches of her thighs, fairer than frost and snow and tinged with an alluring pink, were laid bare to the cool night wind, trembling faintly with her ragged breaths.

More deadly still, as the source of Electro within Keqing's body crumbled, a strange, delicate fragrance born from the mingling of the otherworldly girl's body and pure elemental power spread rapidly in all directions on the night wind.

"Roar-!"

"Hiss-!"

In the space of a few breaths, dozens of pairs of scarlet, greedy beast eyes lit up once more in the shadows of the dense forest surrounding the rocky hill.

The Gale Demon Wolves frightened away earlier still dared not approach, but farther out, three enormous thousand-year Ghost Tigers, two Mandala Snakes with nearly two thousand years of cultivation, and more than ten hundred-year Shadow Demon Leopards were being drawn by the scent of elemental essence emanating from Keqing, racing toward her from every direction!

To these native Soul Beasts, which knew only how to devour and evolve, Keqing, with elemental power spilling out of her, was no different from a walking, peerless Immortal Herb.

Feeling her life force rapidly draining away and the agonizing pain of her meridians being torn apart inch by inch, Keqing's exquisitely beautiful face lost all color.

Her vision began to darken in waves, and even the strength to hold up her upper body deserted her entirely. Her soft, shapely body swayed, then slumped toward the cold, hard, rubble-strewn ground.

Yet she did not fall onto the scorched earth littered with broken stones.

A warm, strong arm reached out just in time and caught her slender, willow-like waist, narrow enough to encircle with one hand, drawing her into a broad, warm embrace that carried a faint, fresh scent.

"Still so stubborn. If we delay another ten breaths and that Vision at your waist shatters completely, even a Great Golden Immortal could do nothing but collect your corpse."

Chu Yuan's deep, magnetic voice sounded beside Keqing's ear, his warm breath brushing lightly over her sensitive earlobe and the pair of purple hair buns atop her head that resembled cat ears.

Keqing shuddered violently.

In all her life, aside from her elders and the maids around her, when had she ever been pressed so close against someone, let alone a strange youth?

Through the thin, torn purple-black gown over her chest, she could even feel the firm contours of his chest and the vigorous beat of his heart. Half the hand around her waist was pressed directly against the cool, smooth skin exposed through a tear in her gown.

The instant their skin touched, a tingling sensation unlike anything she had ever felt mingled with the currents racing through her body and shot from her waist up her back.

"Y-you... let go of me..."

Overwhelmed by shame and anger, Keqing's violet eyes filled with tears. She instinctively braced both hands against Chu Yuan's chest, trying to push him away, but the delicate hands that could ordinarily unleash dozens of sword shadows with ease were now limp against his robes. Not only did they fail to move him an inch, they seemed to be caressing him in feigned resistance.

Just then, the surrounding Soul Beasts charged onto the edge of the rocky hill, and the three thousand-year Ghost Tigers pounced straight at the two figures embracing in the center of the crater!

Keqing's pupils contracted, and her body instinctively tensed.

"Noisy."

Chu Yuan freed his right hand and spread his five fingers slightly.

An illusory crown of light radiating seven-colored elemental divine brilliance appeared above his palm, while four diamond-shaped, wing-like lights pulsed slowly at its sides.

First Martial Soul, Crown of Heavenly Principles!

The instant the crown symbolizing the supreme authority of creation in the Teyvat universe appeared, a vast heavenly might above all living things descended upon the rocky hill with a roar!

The three thousand-year Ghost Tigers and two Mandala Snakes leaping through the air were annihilated in midair as ripples of pale golden divine power washed over them, leaving only rings of yellow and purple Soul Rings flickering ownerlessly in the night.

Keqing, nestled in Chu Yuan's arms, froze completely the instant she saw the seven-colored crown and its four diamond-shaped wings!

That presence...

Although she had never seen with her own eyes the being who presided high above Celestia, as one favored with a Vision, the depths of her soul instinctively responded to this supreme source, which governed the seven elements and established the laws of heaven and earth, with awe and a thrill rooted in the very level of her existence!

Even the Electro power that had been rampaging through her body fell mostly quiet the instant it touched the faint golden light radiating from the Crown of Heavenly Principles.

"Wh-what power is this?!"

Keqing lifted her flushed face, red as if with drink, and stared in disbelief at Chu Yuan, who was so close. "No... this is definitely not ordinary elemental power, nor is it Lord Morax's power as the Geo Archon... why do you have a presence similar to Celestia's divine throne?!"

Chu Yuan looked down at the girl in his arms, at her violet eyes full of shock and confusion. A gentle but unquestionable smile flickered in his eyes.

"Celestia's False Sky has collapsed, and Teyvat is merging with this world called the Douluo Continent."

As Chu Yuan spoke, his left arm tightened slightly around her slender waist, pressing her scalding, soft body closer against his until they were completely flush. "As for me... you can regard me as the new 'Heavenly Principles,' and the only anchor in this new world capable of protecting you all."

"The new... Heavenly Principles?!"

A thunderous boom echoed through Keqing's mind.

She had always held to the belief that "man can conquer heaven" and maintained a scrutinizing, independent attitude toward the gods. But now, hearing the earth-shattering revelation that Teyvat had collapsed and the two worlds were merging, and recalling the purple-gold chasm that had just split the sky, she felt most of her doubts waver at once.

Before she could recover from those earth-shattering words, Chu Yuan's right hand had already descended slowly, his warm palm covering the cracked Vision at her waist and the broad expanse of smooth, bare skin around it.

"Ah...!"

The instant his palm made contact, her long lower legs, wrapped in torn black stockings, stretched helplessly across the rubble, her toes pointing taut.

Too sensitive!

The soft flesh at her waist was so sensitive that she normally could not bear even to touch it, much less now, when her Vision was closely connected to the source of her soul.

As Chu Yuan's pale golden divine power, containing the primordial Phanes's source of creation, flowed unceasingly into her body through his warm palm, Keqing felt an indescribably strange warmth sweep through her entire body.

"Don't resist. Relax your body and entrust all your consciousness and meridians to me."

Chu Yuan lowered his head to her ear, watching her fair, graceful swan neck turn an alluring pink with shame. His warm palm slowly caressed its way over her smooth, taut waist and abdomen, guiding the primordial divine power deep into her limbs and bones.

"Y-your hand... don't move it around... mm..."

Keqing bit down hard on her full lower lip, trying to suppress the embarrassing sounds that kept escaping her throat.

But Chu Yuan's source divine power was simply too overbearing, and too warm.

The Soul Power of the Douluo world that had invaded her meridians, madly squeezing and tearing at them like maggots clinging to bone, met that pale golden divine power of Heavenly Principles and, like ice and snow before the blazing sun, was forcibly stripped away and crushed in an instant, then swiftly transformed into the gentlest, purest nourishing power!

Wherever it passed, the meridians torn apart by the backlash of the laws healed and reshaped themselves at a speed visible to the naked eye. The supreme comfort and tingling rising from the depths of her soul felt as though her entire body had been immersed in a warm spiritual spring among the clouds, utterly routing Keqing's tightly held defenses.

At some point, the hands she had braced against Chu Yuan's chest had limply clutched his robes instead. Her exquisite, beautiful face was buried completely in the hollow of his neck, and fragrant, scalding sweat dampened the wisps of purple bangs on her forehead as they brushed against his collar with a faint, intimate rustle.

"Hum-!"

Just as the level-thirty primordial divine power within Chu Yuan finished washing through a full circulation of Keqing's meridians without restraint, the Electro Vision at her waist, on the verge of shattering, suddenly gave a clear, stirring hum!

Under the reconstruction of the Crown of Heavenly Principles' laws, not only did the spiderweb cracks on the Vision's surface instantly mend, but the Electro core inside, once restricted by Teyvat's old laws, was forcibly branded with the dual marks of Douluo Star's laws and those of the primordial Heavenly Principles!

Around the once-pure amethyst surface appeared a ring of noble, mysterious, pale golden divine patterns of Heavenly Principles!

"Boom-crack-!"

A thick, concentrated pillar of purple-gold lightning shot skyward from Keqing's body, instantly tearing through the night above the rocky hill!