The Gentlest God-Venti

[TOP 1: Teyvat Academy]

The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect,

the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan,

the Clear Sky Sect,

Spirit Hall,

Sea God Island.

Every living being raised their head and looked at the Sky Screen.

Unexpectedly, the Sky Screen did not reveal Teyvat Academy's strength first. Instead, it displayed an image.

There were eight people in it.

Su Yun and his two companions had not gone to Wanmin Restaurant today. They sat with Zhongli, Ningguang, and the others on the top floor of the Merchants' Guild.

Xiangling was there too.

Everyone present had come from Teyvat.

Ningguang looked at the eight people on the Sky Screen with a trace of envy.

The eight gods were being introduced first. Su Yun could not understand it—he had not even drawn one yet, had he?

Why was the ranking laying all his cards bare already?

They were:

Venti, Zhongli, Raiden Ei, Nahida, Furina, Mavuika, Columbina, and Anastasia.

Eight great gods.

Ning Fengzhi looked at the figures, whose very art style differed from theirs, and could not help standing up.

Their entrance was on another level from second place's!

Just how strong were they?

Second place had a God King, after all. How powerful did first place have to be?

Even the Asura God, who had been living like a lord at the Clear Sky Sect, was curious.

He was a God of Law Enforcement, yet he had never known such beings existed on Douluo Continent.

And they were ranked above him.

How terrifying was that?

At last, the Sky Screen began to change.

Venti was the first to light up.

The Anemo symbol appeared, followed by a line of text.

"If you are trapped in a place where no wind blows, I will play the Song of the High Heavens."

—The gentlest god, Barbatos the Anemo Archon.

Zhu Zhuqing, who was training with Rosaria in Suotuo City, suddenly raised her head. She stared at the green figure and touched her Anemo Vision.

So the one who saved me was the Anemo Archon?

The Sky Screen continued.

The wind brought the seeds of stories, and time turned them into legend...

Venti sat at Windrise, where every dream had begun.

His fingers lightly plucked the strings.

"Two thousand six hundred years ago, I was only a wisp among the thousand winds, a tiny elemental spirit in the breeze."

"Back then, Mondstadt was ruled by Decarabian, the God of Storms. Hurricanes raised by the tyrant surrounded it, barring even birds from passing through."

Venti's voice sounded again.

"The story I have to tell begins in Old Mondstadt. In that land ruled by a tyrant, I met a boy."

"The boy could play the harp and sought the verses of his own poem. But he was born within the wind walls and had never seen a blue sky."

As Venti spoke, the Sky Screen showed the scene.

A boy who looked much like Venti held a harp. Facing him was a pale turquoise Sylph fluttering its tiny wings.

The Asura God's pupils contracted sharply. He finally understood: everyone at Teyvat Academy was a visitor from beyond this world.

No wonder a force of this caliber had appeared on Douluo Continent.

No wonder even he could not fathom the Sky Screen. These were top-tier powers from a higher dimension, perhaps even a realm on the level of the legendary God Stars.

The Asura God stared fervently at the Sky Screen, at Old Mondstadt wrapped in hurricanes.

According to the Sky Screen, those were merely hurricanes Decarabian, the God of Storms, had stirred up with a casual gesture—and they would never dissipate.

That authority set a hungry gleam in the Asura God's eyes.

Ever since obtaining the Angel God's authority of judgment, he had entertained a theory: if he gathered every authority, could he claim the position of Creator God?

Unfortunately, he lacked several crucial authorities: time, space, creation, and death.

Besides, the authorities held by gods like them did not seem complete. Even the Sea God, despite wielding authority over the ocean, should in theory still be countered by the god of water.

Yet the Sea God's divine rank was actually higher than his.

Put plainly, the authorities of the Douluo God Realm were "divine-position authorities." Gods gained strength under the particular conditions of those positions.

The demon god in the image, however, seemed to wield power on the level of the "world's fundamental laws."

At Teyvat Academy, Jean clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and prayed to the Sky Screen.

"May the Anemo Archon protect you."

The scene continued.

The boy knelt inside a high tower and gazed up at the heavens. He tried to speak, but only the howling wind swept past, hiding the blue sky.

"I want to see birds soaring."

His gaze was stubborn, his eyes bright.

But the shrieking wind drowned out his voice. The storm accepted only hymns of praise and left no room for any other sound.

The boy stared at the tower and watched the storm swallow everything in darkness.

"The real sky, poems and songs beyond this cage... isn't that a dream worth fighting for?"

A blue sky, a tranquil beach, flowers and grass in bloom, a world of freedom—sights never seen within the hurricane-ringed tower—rose before the boy's eyes as he imagined them.

And so the boy invited me.

"Come with me—we'll crush the tyrant and tear open the wind walls."

The resolute boy cradled his harp in one arm and reached toward Venti, who was still a Sylph, with the other. He looked every bit a wandering bard, yet he radiated the spirit of a warrior.

The boy raised the banner of rebellion, and I joined the war for freedom.

Those who broke free of their cage won victory after victory. A god's throne crumbled, the thousand winds whirled, and nations trembled!

Everyone stared, dumbfounded by the vast battle unfolding on the Sky Screen.

The boy held the banner of rebellion high. War raged across the scene as countless mortals charged toward the tower with battle cries. A figure resembling Diluc from behind appeared among them, fighting alongside Venti, who was still a little Sylph.

At Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong watched the battlefield in the image.

A twisted thought flashed through her mind.

This was what she craved. Her ultimate purpose in starting a war was to take revenge on the world that had "hurt her."

She had even considered destroying all of Douluo Continent along with it!

The other living beings felt only awe.

To start a war for freedom—how much courage did that take, especially against an opponent so powerful?

The scene continued.

More and more people fell on the road to freedom, while the towers symbolizing the tyrant of wind collapsed one after another.

At last, the black-and-red hues gave way to the turquoise green of freedom!

On the top floor of the Teyvat Merchants' Guild, everyone looked at Venti, who sat on the windowsill holding a bottle of Dandelion Wine.

Who would have thought Mondstadt's god of wind had such a past?

"Amid the smoke of war, we witnessed the tyrant's death. Amid the ashes, we witnessed the tower's fall."

"And so New Mondstadt began—from that day on, no one ascended the throne!"

But the dying tyrant left behind one final curse.

The raging storm unleashed at his fall would have destroyed the newly freed people in an instant if no one stopped it;

the nameless boy plucked the strings of his harp and set time's own strings vibrating, dispersing that world-ending storm across the long ages until it became a breeze lasting a thousand years.

The price was that time erased the nameless boy completely. Not even his name remained; only Barbatos remembered him.

So Barbatos took the boy's form, preserving the last trace of his existence.

(This final part of the story came from the When the Wind Arises artifact.)