Purifying Azhdaha

After the white light faded, a deafening roar resounded throughout Liyue. A meteor crater had formed, and Azhdaha had been petrified.

"My friend, you can act now."

Morax looked at Qiu Bai.

"Mm."

Qiu Bai wasted no time. He teleported straight to Azhdaha and poured vast amounts of yang qi into his body.

"Tch, it's nowhere near enough. I'll have to deplete my own essence!"

Qiu Bai gritted his teeth and poured large amounts of his primordial yang qi into Azhdaha. Dazzling white light illuminated the earth.

Under that dazzling white light, flowers and grass flourished in the newly formed crater, where all life had been wiped out. Before long, it had become an enormous forest.

"My friend, what are you doing?!"

Morax noticed something was wrong.

The adepti realized it too. "No! The Immortal Lord intends to deplete his own essence!"

Morax's expression grew conflicted. He had never imagined this friend would go so far to save Azhdaha.

Doing this would not only leave him asleep for a thousand years, but also diminish his intellect.

Guoba: "Lululu (*^▽^*)."

What he did not know, however, was that Qiu Bai had a system.

"Morax, I may be asleep for a long time."

"But I haven't made a friend of you for nothing. When I wake up, let's have a cup of tea together..."

As he finished speaking, Qiu Bai's eyelids slowly drooped, and his body pitched forward.

"My friend!"

Before Qiu Bai could fall, Morax caught him and held him up, gazing at him with a deeply conflicted expression.

There was guilt, surprise, and sorrow at parting with his friend.

"All right. When that time comes, I'll share a pot of fine tea with you."

Morax spoke with mixed emotions as he looked at the sleeping Qiu Bai.

"Rex Lapis! Immortal Lord!"

The adepti also gazed at the sleeping Qiu Bai with conflicted expressions. Ganyu covered her mouth and burst into tears, as though she could not believe what she was seeing.

"Leave the Immortal Lord to me. He told me before that, while he slept, he was to be sealed inside his Cave Abode."

Cloud Retainer assumed human form. Crane-white hair fell down her back, and she wore a white Daoist robe, with a crane marking above her brows.

Even so, it could not conceal her striking curves.

"All right."

With a heavy heart, Rex Lapis passed Qiu Bai, whom he had been supporting, into Cloud Retainer's arms.

Cloud Retainer gently cradled Qiu Bai and gazed worriedly at his face, her thoughts unreadable.

Then Cloud Retainer flew toward Jueyun Karst with Qiu Bai in her arms.

Throughout this, Morax watched her until her figure disappeared into the horizon.

Had Qiu Bai been awake, he would surely have exclaimed, Holy shit, she's so beautiful! Sorry, Ganyu. Cloud Retainer, here I come!

Nearby, the stone covering Azhdaha cracked apart. His enormous body transformed into a middle-aged man with a pair of dragon horns, his eyes filled with confusion.

"Morax, where is this? How did I end up here?"

Azhdaha looked questioningly at Morax.

"Azhdaha, I'll tell you everything that happened."

Morax spoke to Azhdaha with a conflicted expression.

After hearing Morax's account, Azhdaha's expression was equally conflicted.

"To think that after a few hundred years apart, we've already gained another friend."

Azhdaha was filled with emotion.

"I never imagined even I could be tainted by this so-called 'pitch-black calamity' without realizing it."

"Morax, go and inspect that place. If there is no solution, seal it away. The people of Liyue must not be allowed to set foot there."

Morax fell into thought.

"The pitch-black calamity... To think Liyue has something like that. Azhdaha, I'll go and investigate shortly. Head back and recuperate first."

Morax and Azhdaha talked a little longer before the adepti and Azhdaha returned to their respective homes.

The seasons turned, and time passed. Five hundred years went by.

A black tide of beasts, brought about by Khaenri'ah and sweeping across all of Teyvat, was attacking the Seven Nations.

It brought not only monsters, but also many great demons that had been lurking overseas. These great demons could also be called followers of the Demon Gods.

Because Morax had subdued their Demon Gods during the Archon War, these followers bore a grudge against him and invaded Liyue. Their targets were not mortals, but the adepti.

Under Rex Lapis's orders, the Millelith formed ranks to resist them.

"The Yaksha must hold Liyue! We cannot let the monsters set one foot inside!"

"Has Morax gone there? Even so, while I remain in Liyue, these monsters won't set one foot inside!!!"

Azhdaha returned to his true form, as enormous as a mountain, and stood guard over Guyun Stone Forest.

The pitch-black beast tide surged into Azhdaha, but its attacks and bites were no more than an itch to him.

One stomp crushed a vast swath of monsters, and one mighty roar shook thousands to death.

He summoned Geo constructs to smash into the beast tide and switched elemental powers to freeze the sea. Even so, the monsters could not all be slain in such a short time.

Xiao, the Golden-Winged Great General, also held the front line around Dihua Marsh alongside numerous Millelith soldiers.

The adepti held fast on every front. Dark clouds filled the sky, and the black beast tide invaded Liyue like an ocean. Countless homes were destroyed, and warriors fell.

The war between adepti and demons began.

The battle lasted a full half month. Many Yaksha were tainted by karmic debt and died in madness.

"Everyone, hold the line two hundred li outside the Chasm!!!"

A Yaksha named Bosacius lured away most of the monsters and was sealed inside the Chasm along with them.

With Azhdaha still in Liyue, our protagonist had not failed to change anything. At the very least, he had protected the vast majority of Liyue's homes and people.

Just as this war between adepti and demons was about to end...

Somewhere in Liyue, a little girl gathering medicinal herbs went up a mountain, lost her footing, and fell from a cliff. She stumbled into an adeptal realm and injured her right leg in the fall.

In desperation, the little girl hid in a cave to rest and bandaged her wound inside.

Before she could finish tending to it, she faintly heard sounds that seemed not to belong to the mortal world.

She was within the battlefield of the adepti and demons and had unfortunately been caught in the fighting. How could a little girl withstand their power? She suffered injuries all over her body and could no longer move.

At that moment, she saw an exceptionally handsome young man lying spotless atop some cor lapis. She wanted to ask him for help.

But she was gravely injured, and a fallen boulder had blocked the cave entrance. Adepti and demons were fighting outside, making it even more dangerous.

Unless a miracle occurred, her life would continue to ebb away, little by little.

Before she died, the little girl voiced her final wish. "If only time could stay in the past..."

With that thought, tears rolled one after another from the dying girl's eyes.

She wanted time to stop. She wanted to return to when she was alive and well. That was her most desperate wish.

Perhaps her fear of death, her desire to live, and her longing for her family were so powerful that, at last, a gleaming Vision appeared beside her.

At that moment, Cryo, which represented freezing and preservation, answered Qiqi's longing. But for the dying little girl, a Vision could not free her from death's grasp.