"No!"
The word, a sharp, desperate cry, tore from Ren's throat. Ningguang's plan was logical, heroic, a queen's ultimate sacrifice… and he would not allow it. He would not let her destroy her life's work, the very symbol of Liyue's mortal ambition, when there was still another way.
Before anyone could react to his sudden outburst, he was already moving. He sprinted, not towards the safety of the office, but towards a secluded corner of the balcony where, under the cover of an ornate planter, he had deliberately, foresightfully, left his hoverboard.
"REN, COME BACK!" Ganyu's frantic scream was lost in the wind.
He leaped onto the board, the foot latches clicking into place. He didn't hesitate. He leaned forward and shot off the edge of the Jade Chamber, a small, dark grey blur against the churning, storm-filled sky.
"What is he doing?!" Keqing yelled, her face a mask of horrified confusion.
On the board, Ren's mind was a point of cold, sharp focus. He had known this might happen. In the quiet days of his solitary practice, he had done more than just hone his shields. He had tampered with his Master's work. With his own innate understanding of its mechanics, he had found and carefully, deliberately, disabled the single adeptal rune that served as the height restrictor. The sky was now his.
He pushed the board to its maximum speed, soaring not towards the safety of the harbor, but directly towards the monstrous, multi-headed god rising from the sea.
Osial, having recovered from its failed attack, roared in fury, its multiple heads turning to focus on the small, insignificant gnat that was daring to approach it. One of its heads lunged, its maw opening to unleash a torrent of high-pressure water, a jet that could strip metal from rock.
Ren banked sharply, the hoverboard responding instantly to the shift in his weight. He skimmed across the surface of the churning waves, the water jet missing him by inches, his movements a blur of impossible speed and grace. He was a dragonfly dancing through a hurricane.
He dodged another attack, then another, weaving through a storm of divine fury, climbing higher and higher, a single, defiant speck of mortal will against a backdrop of godly rage. He needed to get above it. That was the key.
He finally cleared the apex of the monster's thrashing heads, positioning himself directly over the central, massive torso that served as its core. He was hundreds of feet in the air, a dizzying, terrifying height, the wind screaming around him.
He brought the hoverboard to a hovering stop, its propellers whining as they fought to keep him stable in the storm. He then let go of his focus on flight and turned his entire being, his every ounce of will and power, to a single, monumental act of creation.
He raised his hands to the sky. The turquoise light that erupted from him was no longer a gentle glow; it was a blinding, furious nova. He wasn't just summoning the cold from within; he was pulling it from the very air, from the moisture in the storm clouds, from the depths of the sea below.
Above his head, the air began to shimmer and frost. A small point of light formed, then rapidly, impossibly, began to grow. He was not sculpting a delicate lotus or a small, intricate shield. He was forging a weapon. A mountain of pure, solidified winter.
An iceberg.
It grew with a terrifying speed, a colossal, jagged mass of dense, glowing Cryo energy, larger than a house, then larger than a ship, its immense weight groaning and crackling as it materialized out of thin air. The temperature around him plummeted, the very air turning to a fog of ice crystals.
Everyone on the Jade Chamber, mortal and adeptus alike, could only stare, their own battle forgotten, their minds unable to comprehend the scale of the power they were witnessing.
Osial, sensing the new, immense threat from above, roared and began to gather its own energy, but it was too late.
With a final, desperate cry of exertion, Ren thrust his hands downwards.
The great, celestial iceberg, freed from its creator's will, began to fall. It did not drift; it plummeted, a mountain of pure, absolute-zero cold descending like a divine hammer blow.
It struck Osial directly in its central mass.
There was no grand explosion. There was only a deep, world-shaking CRUUUNCH as the iceberg slammed into the ancient god, followed by the sound of a thousand shattering glaciers. The absolute cold of the iceberg met the chaotic Hydro energy of the god, and the reaction was instantaneous. The water that formed Osial's body flash-froze, the divine energy that held it together irrevocably disrupted.
The great beast convulsed, its roars turning into a final, gurgling scream of agony. Its monstrous form, now brittle and shot through with massive, crystalline fractures, began to crumble. It collapsed in on itself, not just defeated, but annihilated, its very essence frozen and shattered. With a final, deep groan, the remains of the Overlord of the Vortex sank beneath the waves, the churning sea slowly, grudgingly, calming in its wake.
Osial was gone, sealed away not by rock, but by an eternity of ice, never to return.
In the sky, the immense effort had taken its toll. The blinding turquoise light around Ren vanished. The last of his strength, the last of the vast energy he had borrowed and shaped, was spent. His body went completely limp, his consciousness dissolving into a sea of black. He slid from the side of the hoverboard and began to fall, a small, silent shape tumbling from the heavens.
But he did not hit the water.
A figure, moving with an unnatural, clockwork grace, shot up from the direction of the shore, a pair of mechanical wings deploying from her back. She caught his small, unconscious form with a gentle, practiced ease. She was a woman who looked almost exactly like the Katheryne from the Adventurers' Guild, but she was dressed in the dark, elegant attire of a Snezhnayan maid.
She glided silently, gracefully, back towards a secluded, rocky outcropping on the coast, far from the prying eyes of the Harbor.
There, sitting on a large, flat rock as if she had been watching a particularly entertaining stage play, was Sandrone.
The maid-like automaton landed with barely a sound and gently, carefully, laid the unconscious Ren in the Harbinger's lap.
Sandrone looked down at the small, pale, and utterly exhausted boy resting against her. She gently brushed a stray, blue-streaked strand of hair from his forehead. A strange, complex, and utterly unreadable smile touched her lips.
"Oh, my dear, clever little investment," she whispered to the silent, sleeping child. "You are turning out to be more interesting than I could have ever possibly imagined."