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Throughout the entire process of the Vourukasha Oasis' creation, what intrigued Victor Wang the most was undoubtedly the glimmer left behind by the Goddess of Flowers.
The origins of the Goddess of Flowers were relatively clear.
When she first met the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, she described herself as "an elf created by the Primordial, a flickering phantom, a faint glimmer flowing from the eyes of the creator."
In the memories of the Jinn's birth, it was also mentioned that "the Lady of Flowers was once forsaken by the sky, her resplendent and noble form shattered beyond repair, and her people were all punished, losing their reason."
Arama once said as well, "Among the Seelie race, there was a remnant who traveled in the desert alongside the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata and the Valuka Shuna."
With corroboration from multiple sources, the Goddess of Flowers' identity as a creation of the Primordial and as a Seelie was essentially beyond doubt. The fact that her glimmer could contend with the Abyss only further confirmed this in reverse.
Searching through the records preserved in his memory, Victor Wang found three pieces of information related to the glimmer.
The first was a "peculiar transcript."
It referred to the reaction by which the glimmer erased or even reversed the Abyss' influence as an "annihilation reaction," and classified "glimmer" and "Abyss" as belonging to the same tier in terms of "rules," stating that both possessed the power to "rewrite rules." It further claimed that the users of both powers were still stuck in an "unconscious" stage, influenced by the power and in turn rewritten by it.
The second was "Rene's Investigation Notes."
When Rene was still a child losing his baby teeth, he had once gone to the Vourukasha Oasis with Jakob and Karl to investigate. In his notes from that expedition, he wrote that compared to elemental power, the power of the glimmer actually shared more similarities with the Abyss: matter and energy that came into contact with either would be assimilated, and both seemed to possess their own consciousness.
Able to purify Abyssal power, capable of assimilating whatever touched it, and seemingly conscious—Victor Wang remembered having encountered something similar before.
The Celestial Nail.
Especially the one in The Chasm.
To curb the spread of the Abyss, the power it radiated transformed ordinary ore into Lumenstone, and that Lumenstone even chased the Dark Mud all the way from the depths up to the entrance of The Chasm.
If the Celestial Nail were linked to the glimmer…
The third was a set of "Pages From Some Lost Notes."
This notebook contained a large amount of information, including the following:
The power used by Khaenri'ah before discovering the Abyss—"Azosite," refined by extracting elemental power from the ley lines—was essentially no different from elemental power and absolutely incapable of breaking the laws of the elements themselves.
The Abyss could corrupt and twist a god's elemental power, placing it at a higher tier than elemental energy in terms of rules.
Khaenri'ah's method of using the Abyss was too crude, which led their "evolution" down an uncontrollable path.
The glimmer could reverse the effects of Abyssal power, sharing the same characteristics as a certain mysterious "crystal."
By processing glimmer power using Khaenri'ah's method of refining Azosite, and then reacting it with an object made from the Abyss, one could create the "perpetual energy source" that Khaenri'ah envisioned.
This third notebook directly mentioned both the "crystal" and the "glimmer."
Although the exact nature of the crystal could not be definitively identified, once the origins of the Goddess of Flowers were understood, the essence of the glimmer she created was already obvious, and the possible identity of the crystal was extremely limited.
The Goddess of Flowers was created by the Primordial. The glimmer came from the wisdom of flowers and the veins of the sky. The Celestial Nails came from Celestia—and even their shattered fragments were crystals.
The power of the glimmer and the power of the Celestial Nails should be one and the same.
The glimmer was the power used by the Primordial.
Probably.
If this conjecture is true…
Victor Wang suddenly felt a sense of unease, as though his firepower might be insufficient. According to his agreement with Venti, he was destined to ascend to Celestia.
Glimmer and Abyss were two energies on the same tier, while elemental power was lower than both. "Rules," "consciousness," and the like—no matter how one looked at it, elemental power seemed inferior. Even if one gathered all seven elements, would that truly be enough to handle whatever awaited on Celestia?
If conflict with Celestia were inevitable, then at the very least, one would need to master either glimmer or Abyss.
Yet Khaenri'ah had studied the Celestial Nail on Dragonspine and ultimately failed.
King Deshret merely used the desert's Celestial Nail as an energy source for the Eternal Oasis, only to be polluted himself by forbidden knowledge even deeper than the Abyss. The Celestial Nail had demonstrated the ability to stabilize forbidden knowledge into Dark Mud; the fact that it could not resist that corruption suggested that King Deshret most likely never truly mastered the glimmer.
Thus, the power of the glimmer was absolutely not something easily grasped.
As for Abyssal power… it had become rather common in Teyvat by now, but it was always others who wielded it. As for how to control it personally… perhaps it was time to learn, given the right opportunity—such as the next time he encountered Dainsleif. This body had already endured Abyssal power before; learning it should be easy enough, right?
Thinking of the Abyss, and of Dainsleif, Victor Wang realized that what happened at the Vourukasha Oasis five hundred years ago was not yet finished.
After Egeria sacrificed her life to become the Amrita, the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata planted the Harvisptokhm within it, and Simurgh dispersed its form to cleanse the Vourukasha Oasis, the Harvisptokhm finally grew to maturity, extending their roots to seal the source of the calamity rising from underground.
But matters were far from simple. After suppressing the disaster, the Harvisptokhm absorbed too much corruption, giving rise in the sky to the phenomenon known as the "The Sign of Apaosha," which was a projection of the scene within the Tunigi Hollow.
Notably, what surface dwellers regarded as an ominous sign bringing calamity—the "The Sign of Apaosha"—was called the "Fravashi Tree" by the people of Khaenri'ah, meaning "the heavens that reveal reality."
However, given the already-known facts of Teyvat's "false sky" and that the world is wrapped within the Primordial's "eggshell," this detail was of little consequence, serving only as additional corroboration—such as the possibility that the true world is saturated with Abyssal power.
Shaking his head, Victor Wang brought his thoughts back on track—
Aside from the unresolved "The Sign of Apaosha," there were still monsters that had reached the surface and needed to be dealt with. The Paris born from Simurgh took on this responsibility, leaving the Vourukasha Oasis to suppress calamities across the land.
The first Pari, Zurvan, discovered an unconscious blond man while suppressing disasters elsewhere. His face was covered, his hand clenched tightly around a ring, and half his body had already taken on the form of a monster—yet he bore none of a monster's aura. Upon awakening, he claimed to be a knight of Khaenri'ah who had survived due to a curse.
That man was none other than Dainsleif.
It was not strange for him to appear in Sumeru at that time, given that Khaenri'ah lay directly beneath it. His body had indeed begun to turn into a monster, and the fact that he had not fully transformed might have had something to do with that ring.
For a time afterward, he fought alongside Zurvan against the monsters attacking the Vourukasha Oasis.
Later still, a group of Akademiya scholars arrived from the east of the desert, led by a one-armed sage. They had once fought side by side with the Khaenri'ahn "Schwanenritter," who piloted Ruin Golems against the black tide of beasts. Knowing that the Schwanenritter were warriors who pursued what they believed to be right even while bearing infamy, they took upon themselves the knights' final wishes and, to completely eliminate the calamity, retraced the path those knights had once walked to reach the Vourukasha Oasis.
Dainsleif, Zurvan, the one-armed sage, and the scholars entered the ruins left behind by Khaenri'ah, discovering a method to reach the Harvisptokhm through the Tunigi Hollow. Using the Amrita, they purified the corruption that had given rise to the "The Sign of Apaosha." Afterward, more Paris were born in the Vourukasha Oasis, and the monsters on the surface gradually vanished. At last, this disaster came to an end.
In the end, Dainsleif left the Vourukasha Oasis together with Aether.
The one-armed sage entered the underground Khaenri'ahn ruins and never returned.
The others formed partnerships with the newly born Paris, calling themselves the "Order of Skeptics," and settled in the region surrounding the Vourukasha Oasis.
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