Why Was a God Who Had Been Dead for Five Hundred Years Resurrected?
Liyue, the Jade Chamber.
After notifying the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Childe and La Signora quickly received the current Tianquan's approval to visit this pavilion high in the sky, where they met Ningguang, the Tianquan, and Keqing, the Yuheng.
"We would like to invite the Geo Archon to attend the meeting of gods in Snezhnaya a few months from now, to oppose the Heavenly Principles." La Signora stated her purpose without the slightest hesitation. "I've already delivered the invitation in Mondstadt and obtained the Knights of Favonius' agreement. Now that we've come to Liyue, I hope you'll accept as well."
"A meeting of gods? Though I guessed this day would come, I didn't expect it so soon..." Ningguang fell silent for a few seconds before speaking. "If you only require the Liyue Qixing to attend, I can make that decision for you. But since this concerns Rex Lapis, I think you might wait a few days for the Rite of Descension and extend the invitation to him yourselves."
"The Rite of Descension? Can outsiders like us attend too?" Curiosity showed on Childe's face.
"The Rite of Descension has no nationality restrictions to begin with. Foreigners can attend too," Ningguang replied.
"I see." La Signora nodded, then turned to Childe. "In that case, there's no time to lose. Childe, stay in Liyue and attend the Rite of Descension. I'll go on ahead to notify the Electro Archon in Inazuma."
"Leave it to me!" An excited smile spread across Childe's face. "Great! Looks like I really might get a chance to duel the Geo Archon!"
"???"
At the sight of him, Ningguang and Keqing both wore subtle expressions, as though they were looking at a complete idiot.
La Signora didn't want to stay around an idiot like Childe for too long either, lest his stupidity rub off on her, so she promptly suggested taking her leave.
"I think you could leave a little later, Lady La Signora," Ningguang suddenly said. "I'd like to invite you both to watch a newly released video."
"A video?"
La Signora and Childe looked puzzled at Ningguang's words.
They had spent the past while traveling by ship, and because current Akasha Terminal technology was developed using Irminsul and Ley Lines, it was not yet possible to connect to the network at sea.
As a result, La Signora and Childe had barely been online for quite some time.
Naturally, they hadn't seen any of the A Hundred Lifetimes of Reincarnation video series that was now hugely popular across the network.
Faced with Ningguang's invitation, La Signora was somewhat reluctant to waste time, but persuading the Geo Archon to attend the meeting afterward would require the Tianquan's help.
In the end, she agreed and accepted the invitation to watch.
"In that case, there's no time to lose. Let's begin."
Ningguang quickly had a secretary make the arrangements, and the video began playing on a large Akasha Terminal screen nearby.
After the opening captions finished, images slowly appeared before everyone.
The view began high in the sky, looking down on several isolated islands standing in the ocean.
The full extent of the nation called Inazuma was laid out clearly before everyone.
Then the familiar narrator's voice rang out once more.
[Inazuma was the nation of lightning.]
[Long ago, sisters named Makoto and Ei came to this desolate, remote land and taught its people to farm, mine, and smelt.]
[The elder sister, Makoto, became a god, while the younger sister, Ei, became the blade that protected her.]
[Working together, they built the nation of Inazuma.]
[But five hundred years ago, a sudden disaster engulfed the entire nation and cast a great shadow over it.]
[The god named Makoto died, the warriors who protected the nation died, and in the end, more than half the people perished as well.]
[In despair, the younger sister, Ei, had no choice but to take on a god's duties alone and uphold a god's responsibilities.]
[But she was not suited to governing a nation, nor could she bear the expectations of its countless people. In the end, she chose to abandon everything and cast the entire nation into "Eternity."]
[Thus, the Sakoku Decree and the Vision Hunt Decree were born.]
[Everything in Inazuma fell into absolute stagnation.]
In concise, straightforward language, the narrator quickly told everyone about Inazuma's past circumstances, describing why the nation had fallen under the shadow of the Vision Hunt Decree and the Sakoku Decree.
Yet when the viewers heard this account, they were all deeply confused and immediately began discussing it.
[So that's how the Vision Hunt Decree and the Sakoku Decree came about. Lady Ei couldn't bear the duty of protecting the nation, so she simply brought everything to a standstill. That way, there was no need to govern, and the nation could last forever.]
[I can understand it, but something still feels strange to me.]
[Come to think of it, Lady Raiden Makoto died five hundred years ago? But how come I heard that the god governing Inazuma now is Lady Makoto herself?]
[Could Lady Raiden Makoto have been resurrected by someone too, just like Lady Guizhong of Liyue?]
[No, the situation seems a little different. Lady Guizhong did survive, but Lady Raiden Makoto never appeared in Inazuma during those five hundred years. She only returned suddenly, recently.]
[Returned suddenly? What does that mean? Can a god who's been dead for hundreds of years be resurrected too?]
[I don't know. Honestly, even as someone from Inazuma, I can't make sense of what happened. A lot of things seemed to happen all of a sudden.]
[That's right, I feel the same way. It always feels like something's missing from my memories.]
In the discussions online, countless people from Inazuma said they seemed to have forgotten something important.
But precisely because they had forgotten, they couldn't remember what had happened at all.
Inazuma's history over the past hundred years seemed to have been forcibly cut into pieces by some power, leaving no way to put it back together.
With these doubts in mind, everyone couldn't help but continue watching, wanting to see what had happened to plunge the entire nation of Inazuma into a vortex of historical nothingness.
The video continued playing.
The first to appear before everyone was Inazuma's god, Raiden Ei.
But people soon realized that rather than Raiden Ei herself, this was a puppet she had created.
It did not possess the real Raiden Ei's will, but was a double she had made so she wouldn't have to govern the nation personally.
At the Raiden Shogun's command, the Vision Hunt Decree and the Sakoku Decree were immediately promulgated, and all of Inazuma fell into absolute isolation.
The most miserable of all were those who possessed Visions, whose Visions were forcibly taken away by the Shogunate Army.
Not only that, after losing their Visions, they forgot their own aspirations as well, becoming walking corpses and falling into profound pain and despair.