The heroic, unified efforts on the ground were a beautiful, inspiring sight, but Ren's gaze kept being drawn, with a growing sense of dread, back to the sky. The battle between the Raiden Shogun and the new, Gnosis-empowered Balladeer was a thing of terrifying, apocalyptic beauty, a relentless, endless storm of divine, violet fury.
But Ren, with his unique, otherworldly knowledge, saw a truth that no one else could. This was not a battle that could be won quickly.
He remembered the lore. He remembered the stories of Ei, of her battle in the Archon War against the ancient serpent god, Orobashi, a battle that had permanently scarred the very landscape of Inazuma, cleaving Yashiori Island in two with a single, divine strike. He knew that her power, her sheer, divine endurance, was a thing of legends, a force that could be sustained for centuries.
And Scaramouche… the Balladeer, now fused with the very heart of a god, the Electro Gnosis, was her near-equal. He was a being of immense, almost infinite, potential. Ren knew from his fragmented memories of another, future story, of the countless samsaric cycles it would take for another to truly understand the depths of his power. He was a newborn god, but a god nonetheless.
This was a battle between two eternities, two beings of near-limitless power. And the longer it raged, the more the city below would suffer. The shockwaves, the stray bolts of divine lightning… it was a war of attrition, and the only true casualty would be Inazuma itself. This was not a feasible solution.
But to interrupt a battle between two gods? It was not just impossible; it was suicidal.
As Ren watched, his mind, an engine of logic and desperate, creative problem-solving, began to whirl at a furious pace. He couldn't fight them. He couldn't shield the entire city forever. He needed to end the fight. But how?
And then, an idea sparked in his mind. An idea so audacious, so insane, and so utterly, brilliantly, perfect, that it took his own breath away.
The source of the conflict, the very thing that was fueling the Balladeer's god-like power, was the Gnosis. If he could somehow… remove it from the equation… the battle would end.
He thought of that long-ago evening in Liyue, of the moment he had touched the Cryo energy of Ganyu's lotus. He remembered the sensation, the hungry, irresistible pull, the way his own body, his very soul, had simply… absorbed the elemental power. It had almost destroyed him then, the backlash of absorbing an adeptus's power directly.
But the energy in the air now… it wasn't from a person. It was the ambient, chaotic, and incredibly potent, fallout from the Gnosis itself. And his own, unique, outlander's body was a vessel, a conduit, that could, theoretically, interact with it.
Could I? he thought, his heart pounding a frantic, terrifying rhythm. Could I connect to it? Could I pull the Gnosis out of him, just like I pulled the Cryo out of Ganyu's lotus?
It was a mad gamble, a one-in-a-billion shot. But it was the only shot he had.
To do it, he would need to get close. He would need to be at the very epicenter of the raging, elemental storm. He needed to get high. As high as he could possibly go. He needed to get to the top of the Tenshukaku.
He knew Ganyu, or any of his other guardians, would never, ever, allow it. This was a plan so dangerous, so suicidally reckless, that he could not, would not, explain it to them. This was a move he had to make alone.
He waited for his moment. Amidst the chaos of a particularly violent shockwave, as everyone's attention was focused on a collapsing bell tower, he acted.
He ducked behind the cover of a large, overturned cart, his movements quick and stealthy. He jumped on his hoverboard. He said a silent, heartfelt apology to his very worried, and soon to be very, very, angry, sister.
With a soft, almost inaudible whir, the board lifted off the ground. Keeping low, using the smoke and the chaos of the ruined streets as cover, he zipped away, a small, dark grey shadow on a secret, desperate, and utterly insane, mission.
He was not just an observer anymore. He was no longer content to be a shield. He was, in this final, desperate moment, choosing to become a player once more. He was going to try and steal a god's heart, right from the middle of a war in the heavens.