The world dissolved. One moment, Ren was enveloped in the warm and secure presence of Ningguang, the gentle, rhythmic breathing of the sleeping Tianquan a soft, comforting sound in the quiet Sumeru night. The next, he was… nowhere.
He was floating in a void. An endless, silent, and starless expanse of perfect, featureless black. There was no up, no down, no sense of time, only a profound emptiness.
A dream, he thought, his mind, even in this strange, disembodied state, clinging to logic. It must be a dream.
But it did not feel like a dream. It felt… real. More real than the waking world. It felt like a memory of a place he had been before.
Then, the voices came. They were not spoken to him; they were like echoes that felt intimately, terrifyingly, familiar.
"Stop running around, you will get hurt."
The voice was young, mature, and full of a gentle, chiding affection. A girl's voice. He didn't recognize it, but it resonated in the void with warmth. It was a voice that held the sound of… home.
A new voice, sharp, clinical, and devoid of all warmth, cut through the echo. "His blood is quite receptive of the enhancements, good." A man's voice, cold and cruel. It was a voice that spoke of him not as a person, but as a project, a thing.
The girl's voice returned, a fierce, desperate whisper, a promise in the dark. "Be quiet, okay? Big sister promises to get you out of here, safely."
Big sister? The words were a sharp, painful hook in his soul. He had a big sister. Ganyu. But this voice… this was not her. This was... someone else.
As the echoes faded, the void shimmered, and four, large, ornate mirrors materialized out of the blackness, hovering silently before him.
The first mirror flared to life. The image within was bright, warm, and full of a light that hurt his eyes. It showed a small boy, a younger version of his current self, perhaps six or seven, with the same messy, black-and-blue hair, playing in a sun-dappled park. He was laughing, a sound of pure, unadulterated, childish joy. An older girl, her face frustratingly, blurred, was with him. She looked down at the boy, and he could feel the immense, protective love and the exasperation in her body language. She reached out and gently, patted his head. The small boy in the mirror looked up at her and smiled, a smile of pure, perfect, and absolute, trust.
A feeling of profound, heart-wrenching loss, a grief for a memory he didn't even know he had, washed over Ren.
And then, with a sharp, violent CRACK, the first mirror shattered into a million silent, glittering pieces that were swallowed by the void.
The second mirror flashed. The scene was cold, dark, and clinical. The small boy, the younger Ren, was lying on a hard, metal bed, curled into a tight, fetal ball, shivering. He was in a small, sterile room, and on the wall, a stark, black symbol was painted. A symbol he recognized with a jolt of pure, cold dread. It was the insignia of the Fatui.
"So cold," the small, shivering boy in the mirror whispered, his voice a fragile, broken sound.
CRACK. The second mirror shattered, its image of cold and fear vanishing into the endless dark.
The third mirror flared. The scene was the peak of Mt. Aocang. But it was not the peaceful, serene sanctuary he knew. It was a place of desperation and pain. The small boy, was there, his simple clothes torn and ragged, his small body famished, bruised, and streaked with blood. He was stumbling, his legs weak, his face a mask of pure, desperate terror.
"Sis! Where are you?!" he screamed, his voice a raw, heart-breaking cry of abandonment and loss. He tripped, his small, exhausted body giving out, and he collapsed onto the cold, hard stone, unconscious.
Ren stared, his own, transmigrated memories colliding with this new, terrible, truth. He hadn't just appeared on the mountain. The previous him had… escaped. He had been running from something. He had been looking for someone.
CRACK. The third mirror shattered, its image of pain and desperation joining the dust of his forgotten past.
Only one mirror remained. It showed him as he was now. A perfect, flawless reflection. A ten-year-old boy, the Pixie Prince, the Azure Savior, the Prince of Thunder, the beloved little brother and the brilliant inventor. But the reflection… it was darker. The surroundings were a shade of gray that seemed to creep on his mirror self.
As he stared at his own, mirror self, a new voice entered the void. It was not an echo. This voice was ancient, powerful, and it was speaking directly to him.
"You have a history in this world, and yet your future is blurred. As someone who is an affront to the very concept of LIFE and DEATH, you are an anomaly who trancends TIME and SPACE, and yet, you exist. There must be a REASON to your existence, you must find and understand it, lest it consume you."
The voice was a calm, cosmic, and utterly familiar, whisper. Ren froze, a new kind of terror, an intellectual, existential dread, washing over him. He knew that voice. He had heard it in the game. It was the voice of a member of the Hexenzirkel, one of the most mysterious and powerful witches in all of Teyvat.
It was the voice of Nicole Reeyn.