Heavenly Principles' Blessing, Violet Thunder Resounds Again
The night wind carried the damp scent of grass and trees unique to the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest as it swept over the rocky hill, now a charred mess.
Her beautiful eyes, clear as amethysts, stared fixedly at the black-haired youth crouching before her. His long, warm fingers were still gently lifting her delicate chin.
The warmth of his fingertips was almost scorching, carrying an authority and an affinity that made her tremble faintly in the depths of her soul.
Those utterly contradictory sensations intertwined, leaving the Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing, 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 embarrassment and indignation, trying to turn her head away from Chu Yuan's touch. "Take your hand off me! I am the Yuheng, one of the Liyue Qixing. Even in the direst straits, I would never tolerate the advances of someone whose origins I know nothing about!"
Before she had finished speaking, an even more violent surge of Douluo's ambient Soul Power poured in through the torn neckline of her dress.
"Ngh-!"
A stifled, pained moan escaped Keqing's throat against her will.
The [Electro Vision] hanging at her waist erupted in a burst of dazzling violet sparks. Then, with a sharp crack, another deep, alarming fissure appeared across its amethyst surface, which was already covered in a web of cracks!
Without the protection of Celestia's Statues of the Seven and the nourishment of Teyvat's native elemental Ley Lines, every strand of Electro power within her was being treated by the plane consciousness of Douluo Star as heresy that had to be eradicated.
The violent violet lightning lost all control within her slender limbs and throughout her body, turning into countless tiny, searing arcs that spread down her fair, slender neck and over her finely sculpted collarbones.
"Crackle..."
As the arcs leaped, several more threads snapped across the front of her violet-black gauze dress, which had already been torn by the spatial turbulence, revealing a breathtaking expanse of smooth, snowy skin and deep cleavage.
The dark purple pantyhose covering her long, shapely legs also curled and tore under the uncontrolled lightning, leaving broad expanses of her frost-white thighs, tinged an alluring pink, exposed to the cool night wind. They quivered slightly with her ragged breathing.
More dangerously still, as the Electro essence within Keqing dispersed, a strange, delicate fragrance, born from the interweaving of the otherworldly girl's body and pure elemental power, spread swiftly in every direction on the night wind.
"Roar-!"
"Hiss-!"
In just 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 that had been frightened off earlier dared not approach again, but from farther away, three massive thousand-year Ghost Tigers, two Mandala Snakes with nearly two thousand years of cultivation, and more than ten hundred-year Shadow Demon Leopards were racing toward her from every direction, drawn by the scent of elemental essence emanating from Keqing!
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 drain rapidly away and the searing 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 support her upper body deserted her completely. Her soft, graceful body swayed, then slumped toward the cold, hard rubble.
Yet she did not fall onto the rubble-strewn scorched earth.
A warm, powerful arm reached out in time and caught her slender, willowy waist, drawing her into a broad, warm embrace that carried a faint, fresh scent.
"Still so stubborn. If we wasted another ten breaths and the Vision at your waist shattered completely, even a Great Firmament Golden Immortal could only collect your corpse."
Chu Yuan's deep, magnetic voice sounded beside Keqing's ear, his warm breath brushing her sensitive earlobe and the pair of purple hair buns on her head that resembled cat ears.
Keqing's whole body shuddered.
All her life, aside from her elders and the maids at her side, when had she ever been pressed so closely against a strange young man?
Through the thin, torn violet-black dress over her chest, she could clearly feel the firm contours of his chest and the vigorous beating of his heart. Half of the hand around her waist was even pressed directly against the cool, smooth skin exposed through a tear in her dress.
The instant their skin touched, an unfamiliar tingling mingled with the electric currents running wild inside her, shooting from the small of her back up her spine.
"Y-you... let go of me..."
Overwhelmed by embarrassment and anger, Keqing's violet eyes filled with mist. She instinctively pressed both hands against Chu Yuan's chest, trying to push him away, but the fair hands that could ordinarily unleash dozens of sword shadows with ease were limp against his robes. Not only did she fail to move him an inch, but it instead looked as though she were caressing him in halfhearted resistance.
Just then, the surrounding Soul Beasts charged onto the edge of the rocky hill. The three thousand-year Ghost Tigers leaped 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 brilliance appeared above his palm, four diamond-shaped, winglike lights pulsing slowly at its sides.
First Martial Soul, [Crown of Heavenly Principles]!
The instant the crown, symbol of the supreme authority over creation in the Teyvat universe, appeared, a vast heavenly might that stood above all living things descended upon the rocky hill with a crash!
The three thousand-year Ghost Tigers and two Mandala Snakes lunging through the air were annihilated in midair as pale golden ripples of divine power washed over them, leaving only rings of yellow and purple Soul Rings flickering ownerless in the night.
Nestled in Chu Yuan's arms, Keqing froze completely at the sight of the seven-colored crown and its four diamond-shaped wings!
That presence...
Though she had never seen the being who sat high above Celestia with her own eyes, as one favored with a Vision, her soul instinctively felt an awe and a tremor rooted in the very level of her existence before this supreme essence that ruled the seven elements and established the laws of heaven and earth!
Even the Electro power that had been rampaging through her body quieted considerably the instant it came into contact with the faint golden light radiating from the [Crown of Heavenly Principles].
"Wh-what power is this?!"
Keqing tilted up her flushed face and gazed incredulously at Chu Yuan, who was so close. "No... this definitely isn't ordinary elemental power, nor is it Lord Morax's power as the Geo Archon... Why do you carry a presence like that of Celestia's divine throne?!"
Chu Yuan looked down at the girl in his arms, at her violet eyes filled with shock and bewilderment. A gentle yet unquestionable smile flickered in his eyes.
"Celestia's False Sky has already collapsed. 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 hot, soft body closer against his until they fit together without the slightest gap. "As for me... you can think of 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 roar sounded in Keqing's mind.
She had always held to the belief that "humanity can conquer heaven," maintaining a critical and independent attitude toward the gods. But now, hearing the earthshaking revelation that Teyvat had collapsed and the two worlds were merging, and recalling the purple-gold chasm that had split the sky just moments ago, she felt most of her doubts instantly waver.
Before she could recover from his earthshaking words, Chu Yuan's right hand had slowly descended, his warm palm covering both the cracked Vision at her waist and the broad expanse of smooth, exposed skin around it.
"Ah...!"
The instant his palm touched her, her long calves, wrapped in torn black stockings, stretched helplessly against the rubble, her toes pointing straight.
It was too sensitive!
The soft flesh at her side was so sensitive that even a touch was normally unbearable, to say nothing of the fact that her Vision was now closely linked to the essence of her soul.
As Chu Yuan's pale golden divine power, containing the primordial Phanes's essence of creation, flowed steadily into her through his warm palm, Keqing felt an indescribable, strange warmth sweep through her entire body.
"Don't resist. Relax your body and entrust your consciousness and all your meridians to me."
Chu Yuan lowered his head to her ear, watching an alluring pink spread across her fair, slender swanlike neck with embarrassment. His warm palm slowly caressed her smooth, firm waist and abdomen, guiding the primordial divine power deep into her limbs and throughout her body.
"Y-your hand... don't move it around... mm..."
Keqing bit down hard on her full lower lip, trying to hold back the embarrassing sounds that kept escaping her throat.
But Chu Yuan's divine essence was simply too overbearing, and too warm.
The ambient Soul Power of Douluo, which had invaded her meridians and madly squeezed and torn at them like maggots clinging to bone, met the pale golden divine power of Heavenly Principles like ice and snow meeting the blazing sun. It was forcibly stripped away and crushed in an instant, then swiftly transformed into the gentlest, purest nourishing power!
Wherever it passed, the meridians torn by the backlash of the laws healed and reformed at a speed visible to the naked eye. The intense pleasure and tingling that welled up from the depths of her soul made her feel as though she were immersed in a warm spiritual spring among the clouds, utterly routing her strained defenses.
At some point, the hands she had pressed against Chu Yuan's chest had limply grasped his robes instead. She buried her exquisite face in the crook of his neck, hot, fragrant sweat dampening the loose purple bangs on her forehead as they brushed his collar with a soft, intimate rustle.
"Hum-!"
After the primordial divine power in Chu Yuan's body, as high as rank thirty, had flowed without reservation through a complete cycle of Keqing's meridians, the [Electro Vision] at her waist, which had been on the verge of shattering, suddenly gave a clear, ringing hum!
Under the reconstruction of the laws by the [Crown of Heavenly Principles], the weblike cracks on the Vision's surface instantly healed, leaving it as good as new. Its Electro core, once bound 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, a ring of noble, mysterious pale golden divine patterns of Heavenly Principles had appeared!
"Boom-crack-!"
A thick, concentrated pillar of purple-gold lightning burst from Keqing's body into the sky, instantly tearing through the night above the rocky hill!