Shouki no Kami

The Sky Screen unfolded again. This time, the place it showed was familiar to the people of the Akademiya.

On the screen were Azar, the former Grand Sage, Dottore, Scaramouche, and several other Sumeru scholars. They were discussing the God Creation Project.

"When do we begin?"

Scaramouche was visibly excited.

"Heh. You seem rather impatient. You should know that becoming a god is no easy feat."

Dottore's voice betrayed neither joy nor anger.

Azar continued, "Biological modification takes a long time. I also recommend that we start early. Once the connection is complete, his body will be fused with the machine, and he won't be able to move freely anymore."

"I've been through this sort of thing plenty of times!"

"You're the most persistent test subject I've ever seen. Thanks to you, I've also obtained a great deal of the information I wanted.

"But after that period, you went to the Abyss, and we rarely saw each other. The pace at which knowledge was updated slowed, too."

"Such high-minded rhetoric. You're afraid people will find out you care about nothing but your deranged experiments, aren't you?"

"You'd do well to speak to me more respectfully, Scaramouche. You're useful, but that doesn't mean you're immortal."

Though the conversation was unpleasant, the God Creation Project continued. Scaramouche served as the test subject, while Dottore took charge of everything else.

The Sky Screen's images flashed by like a revolving lantern. Having lived through it, many people in the Akademiya knew that the scenes showed the atrocities committed against Sumeru's people by Dottore and the scholars aligned with Azar.

Yet these atrocities were nothing compared to what the fallen in the Douluo Continent were capable of. The depraved there were even more beastly than Dottore.

The Sky Screen stopped on an unconscious female scholar. Scaramouche still remembered her. She could be called his first believer, and her name was Haypasia.

Here, Scaramouche spoke to the Traveler through their consciousness. By this point, the God Creation Project was nearly complete.

"I have completed my apotheosis. Even if you rescue Lesser Lord Kusanali, it will be of no use. As gods, the difference in our power is as vast as heaven and earth."

"Forcing a childlike god to oppose me is hardly a wise choice."

"Scholars regard gods as objects of faith, allowing them to revere them while carrying out the God Creation Project. This shows that humanity's worship of gods is at once blasphemous and sacred. How laughable."

"I was born to become a god. Everything that came before is meaningless, like a blank sheet of paper. What matters is what gets written upon it."

"All I left behind was painful memories and tedious feelings. I should have cast them aside long ago."

"Humans are creatures who find happiness in ignorance."

"Gods need believers. Haypasia was fortunate enough to be chosen by me. Her appearance means I have truly begun to claim divine authority. Her faith will forge my glory."

"Dottore has never known his place. A mere human, and yet he still thinks he can interfere with a new god's affairs."

"I shall grant you a gift. Anything, good or bad, can be called a gift. That is the tyranny of a god."

The camera pulled back. Dark clouds blanketed the sky, and thunder rumbled as bolts of wild lightning came crashing down. Tighnari and Dehya dodged the lightning. Unluckily for Tighnari, one bolt struck him.

Fortunately, the lightning came and went quickly. Otherwise, he might have been in danger.

Tighnari looked puzzled. He remembered this incident: he and Dehya had stopped the Fatui from taking Haypasia, and the sudden lightning had struck indiscriminately, hitting him while driving off the Fatui.

But he didn't remember Scaramouche having anything to do with it.

Tighnari looked toward Nahida and Ouyang Kong. Seeing their calm expressions, he understood that they knew what had really happened.

He wasn't in a hurry. The Sky Screen would surely explain the whole matter soon.

The scene on the Sky Screen changed. Scaramouche was connected to a colossal mechanical construct.

Lesser Lord Kusanali, Nahida, awakened him. The elemental energy unleashed when he came to forced her back.

"The world was already so eager for my birth. At last, we meet, God of Wisdom, Buer."

"Although you've attained the level of a god, the Divine Knowledge Capsules have yet to be injected. You're still incomplete, Balladeer!"

"Balladeer! That name has long since become a thing of the past to me. As my spirit ascended to godhood, it felt as though I had lived through countless ages. Looking back with this body, the existence called Kunikuzushi seems so small, so ugly."

The Balladeer fused with the mechanical construct, and the Sky Screen revealed its true name.

[Shouki no Kami—Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom]

A god like this was something the Douluo Continent had never seen before.

Or rather, one could count on a hand the number of beings in the Douluo Continent who had truly seen a god.

On Sea God Island, the high priestess Bo Saixi watched Shouki no Kami on the Sky Screen and couldn't help asking, "Is that really a god? Lord Sea God is nothing like that."

Scaramouche himself gave a self-mocking laugh.

"Shouki no Kami. What a ridiculous name! Denying your past meant you were doomed to fail from the start."

The Sky Screen's images continued.

"It's an extreme embodiment of the concept of Scaramouche as a puppet, with the Gnosis constantly supplying it with energy. The sages and the Akademiya must have contributed a great deal.

"From a technical standpoint, though, it deserves praise. You could even call it the crystallization of human wisdom."

Nahida gave a fair assessment, but then she changed tack.

"From a spiritual standpoint, however, I don't believe you've reached the level of a god."

"Every god born into this world, every Gnosis, should have the word 'strife' engraved upon it."

"Can you not feel this surging power, this joy bubbling up from the bottom of your heart?"

"I don't feel the same way you do. As for the word 'strife' engraved upon the Gnosis, are you talking about the Archon War?

"The peace Teyvat enjoys today was hard-won. Although I never took part in the Archon War, in my eyes it was nothing but meaningless losses under the rules of the world.

"What purpose does bringing it up again now serve?"

"Unlike you, I regret that I couldn't take part in the Archon War. I've never met a god who didn't crave power before."

"God who presides over wisdom—no wonder even your own people abandoned you."

"This ends now, God of Wisdom, Buer."

"You should know that wisdom can't solve every problem. Just as things stand now, fighting me is your only choice."

"Come... Let us reenact a fragment of the Archon War here and now, and prove the legitimacy of my birth in the name of a god."

Shouki no Kami launched its attack. It commanded all manner of elemental energy—lightning, fire, wind, water, and more—and its four arms possessed tremendous strength.

Soon, the platform collapsed, revealing Shouki no Kami in its full form: enormous and intensely imposing.