Innumerable colossal Golden Trees continuously emerged from beneath Irminsul, extending through the white mist—these were the roots of the Golden Tree.
To the Golden Tree and Irminsul, they were merely tiny hairs on their bodies, but to Nahida, these roots were clearly towering giants.
"W-what's happening?" The golden reflection in Nahida's eyes quickly brought panic to the young deity's face.
As the newborn Dendro Archon, Nahida had always grown up in the shadow of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's brilliance. sages would lament what would have happened if Greater Lord Rukkhadevata were still alive, and the people of Sumeru would praise Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's achievements from the bottom of their hearts.
This caused Nahida, who was still very naive for a deity, to fall into self-doubt and Yearning for Greater Lord Rukkhadevata.
She felt that she could not reach the heights of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, so she hoped that the sages who had once followed Greater Lord Rukkhadevata could recreate their former glory.
That is why Nahida would hand over his Gnosis and quietly stay in the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
The sages could manage Sumeru well, and he, for his part, just had to be obedient.
Nahida constantly reassured himself, saying that once he had learned enough wisdom, he might truly be able to shoulder the responsibilities of a deity.
Although he thought so, every night, Nahida would fall into endless unease and self-reproach.
He was uneasy about the hidden dangers within Irminsul, a problem that even Greater Lord Rukkhadevata had not been able to solve, and now it had fallen upon him.
He reproached himself for his incompetence; he was Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's successor, yet he had not a shred of her clearance.
Fortunately, Nahida had two lights in his life.
One was the innocent and joyful dreams of children, which allowed Nahida to forget his identity and become a child himself.
The other was the call of the great tree, which allowed Nahida to listen to the duties of a deity in the embrace of its branches.
Now, one of those lights seemed to be fading.
"Irminsul… what's wrong with you… tell me…" Nahida frantically ran from the branches to the main trunk of Irminsul.
He patted Irminsul's main trunk, hoping its mother-like murmurs could once again give him guidance.
Soon, that familiar voice reappeared beside Nahida, allowing the flustered Damselette to breathe a slight sigh of relief.
"Nahida… the Gnosis… destroy it… Irminsul… is about to be replaced…"
The ethereal female voice echoed in Nahida's heart; that voice was so familiar to him.
In countless embraces of the branches, it was this voice that clarified the duties of a deity and made him aware of the obligations of a deity.
But now, she was telling him to destroy the Gnosis, to destroy the symbol of a deity.
To be honest, Nahida didn't care about the Gnosis; after all, he had given this item to the sages an unknown time ago.
The Current Nahida only cared about Irminsul.
"What exactly happened? Don't go…" Unbeknownst to him, tears streamed down the Damselette's face.
The thought of Irminsul possibly being replaced, and this voice disappearing from the world, brought an uncontrollable flow of tears from Nahida.
"No way? It's just treating a disease, why is it a matter of life and death?" In the seemingly infinite pure white space, a third voice suddenly rang out.
"Who?!" Upon hearing this voice, Nahida immediately woke up. He began to look around, hoping to find the source of the voice.
Nahida vigorously stirred the element energy within his body, and a faint green glow began to emanate from him.
Was he the culprit behind all this? If he wanted to replace Irminsul, then he would have to step over his corpse, no matter what.
Nahida completely forgot Irminsul's earlier instructions to him. In this regard, Nahida was still somewhat impulsive and unable to fulfill the duties of the God of wisdom.
"Don't look around, look down." The voice echoed around Nahida again, but this time it carried a hint of helplessness.
Shouldn't the first thing to do in such a situation be to look down at Irminsul? Why was this little fellow still looking around?
Yu Jin didn't know that Nahida, since his birth, had never dealt with any problems. The Sanctuary of Surasthana both isolated him from the outside world and isolated danger from him.
"Down!" Nahida suddenly remembered the only variable in this space. So he hurried to the edge of Irminsul's branches and looked down at the vast pure white ocean.
Then he saw the constantly swaying roots of the Golden Tree.
"Hello there."
"S-sprout… tree sprout! So… so small!"
This time, besides the male voice from before, there was also a tender child's voice.
"Hiss—, Xiao Huang, I think you're a bit too talkative?"
"Then… then I won't say anything."
After a conversation Nahida didn't understand, the golden jungle below swayed even more freely.
It was hard to imagine those seemingly unyielding Golden Trees swaying with such soft movements.
"W-what are you doing?" The golden light flickered on Nahida's face; the golden forest below looked like the stage lights used for dancing in a Sumeru tavern.
Flickering, constantly leaping.
"Saying hello! How about it? Do you feel our enthusiasm?"
"Loose… roots, the roots… have been tense for too long, they… they need to relax."
The Golden Tree completely forgot Yu Jin's words from earlier and blurted out the truth again.
"…"
Nahida fell silent. He wiped away his dry tear stains, wondering if he was dreaming.
Just now, he thought Irminsul was about to be replaced, and the entire continent would fall into a huge crisis of ley line disorder.
But now, it seemed that he and Irminsul might have been overthinking things?
"Who are you? Why are you here? What have you done to Irminsul?" Then, Nahida fired off a series of questions, leaving Yu Jin unsure which one to answer.
"Just treating Irminsul, little one." Yu Jin felt extraordinarily weary. He now doubted whether Nahida could cure Irminsul if he hadn't come.
"Treating a disease?" Nahida lowered his head in thought, "Is it the forbidden knowledge hidden deep beneath Irminsul?"
This was a problem Greater Lord Rukkhadevata had left him, and a problem Nahida still had no clue about.
The impending forbidden knowledge was like a Sword of Damocles hanging over Nahida's head. A large part of why Nahida ceaselessly absorbed wisdom was to solve this crisis.
"It seems you still know something about Irminsul." Yu Jin felt a slight relief; he was finally on the same wavelength as this little fellow.
"Is your method of treatment the golden great trees growing below?" Nahida looked at the extending roots of the Golden Tree with some suspicion.
That suffocating feeling, and the roots of the Golden Tree growing and swaying wildly in the information Current below, looked nothing like they were there to treat a disease.
"Of course! Otherwise, why would I plant trees underground when I have nothing else to do?" Yu Jin said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Nahida listened, nodded at the roots of the Golden Tree below, and then cautiously said, "Thank you for your kindness, but I think Irminsul probably doesn't need your help."
Irminsul concerned the stability of the entire Teyvat continent; he couldn't just hand Irminsul over to this unknown individual.
Nahida gently placed his palm on Irminsul, hoping the voice within Irminsul would give him some hint.
But he was disappointed; there was nothing inside Irminsul but flowing data.
"Don't look, that guy is already out of commission." Yu Jin noticed Nahida's small movements and spoke up to remind him.
"I don't need to intervene? Hehe, then wouldn't I have done all this for nothing?"
"Besides, little one, you have no choice. As a family member, just wait patiently while the doctor performs the surgery!"
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