"Ah... Rios ran off again."
Only after the teenage Lord Pyro Archon vanished from sight did Mualani belatedly react, regretfully scratching her head.
"The Lord Pyro Archon's way of leaving is so special," little Paimon said. "This is the first time we've seen someone exit like that."
"Rios is just the type who likes to act cool," Mualani said with a laugh. "Every time he makes an entrance or exit, he has to pull off something flashy. Turning into flames to leave is actually one of the more normal things he's done."
Paimon was left hanging with curiosity: "So how did the Lord Pyro Archon leave in the past?"
"Well..." Mualani thought for a moment, then extended one arm forward, tucking her middle and ring fingers back while raising the other three fingers. "For example, he'd make a gesture like this, suddenly spit out a harmless fire rope to hook onto a Qucusaurus in the sky, and have the Qucusaurus carry him flying up into the heavens."
"Or, for instance, flames would erupt from his hands and feet at the same time, using the propulsion from the flames to instantly shoot up into the sky!"
"And sometimes, he'd even generate a pair of wings from flames on his back to carry him flying."
"In short, Rios has tons of tricks up his sleeve—I've watched him for so long, and I've never gotten tired of it," Mualani said with a smile.
[What kind of seraphim wings...]
[This Lord Pyro Archon seems so chuunibyou.]
[It makes sense for the Lord Pyro Archon to be chuunibyou—he's only about 15 years old at most, right in the prime for that.]
[Wait, could this be a foreshadowing buried by miHoYo?]
[Natlan people all have specialized talents for traversal, and what Mualani just described—could that be the Lord Pyro Archon's traversal module?]
[Uh... you mean the Lord Pyro Archon can spit out a grappling hook like Kinich, then propel himself into the sky with flames from his feet, and even grow wings while flying?]
[One traversal talent is already ridiculous enough—even for the Lord Pyro Archon, he can't possibly have that many traversal talents all at once, right?]
Some players' attention was focused on Rios's traversal talents.
But soon, these people wouldn't be paying attention anymore.
Because the plot had advanced to the next phase: the Traveler was about to take Paimon and participate in the Pilgrimage of the Returning Flame Saint's Night.
The players were about to operate the Traveler to clear the Pilgrimage of the Returning Flame Saint's Night.
Before the event began, every player also received a notification from the game system.
"This thing even has Easy Mode and Normal Mode?"
Seeing the system's introduction, Mu Yang was a bit surprised: "Isn't this Honkai: Star Rail's mechanic? Now it's been optimized over to Genshin Impact?"
In Honkai: Star Rail, when players encounter boss fights during story progression, considering that some players might not have high enough levels, they specifically introduced two modes.
Easy Mode focuses on experiencing the story, with enemy intensity greatly reduced to ensure even newbie players can clear the plot.
Normal Mode is the same as before—so even veteran players, if they haven't raised their characters well, will get thoroughly thrashed by the story bosses, turning into jail players.
Genshin Impact hadn't introduced this kind of mode before, after all—Genshin's character power scaling is well-controlled, and after the three-body problem emerged, character strength had far surpassed the Abyss.
A mere story boss, without relying on mechanics, could hardly survive 10 seconds in the hands of expert players.
"Is this Pilgrimage of the Returning Flame Saint's Night that difficult? They even specifically added an Easy Mode."
Mu Yang unhesitatingly chose Normal Mode.
What a joke—he'd pulled so many characters and raised their levels so high; clearing the main story and beating some Natlan natives should be a piece of cake.
However, once the event started, he realized he had been a bit naive.
"Traveler detected!"
"Commence firing!"
After the Pilgrimage of the Returning Flame Saint's Night began, the Traveler seemed to become the target of all arrows, with many Natlan warriors setting the Traveler as their goal and attacking.
If it were Natlan people wielding close-combat weapons, it would be fine—Mu Yang could just use the Dragonlord to spray them dead.
But Natlan actually had people using machine guns and sniper rifles!
Seeing Natlan warriors using machine guns to spray and draw fire, followed by snipers finishing from afar with massive damage.
"No way, I thought you guys were primitives—turns out you even use machine guns?" Mu Yang's eyes nearly bulged out.
No helping it—the attire of Natlan people and their architectural style were just too misleading, making anyone glance at them and assume the tech level wasn't high.
But in reality, in terms of tech level, Pyro-element-driven machine guns and sniper rifles weren't even worth mentioning—Chasca's gun that could fly, and Mavuika's Flamestrider that could soar through the skies and dive into the earth, those were the real black tech.
He had originally treated all Natlan people like country bumpkins, but unexpectedly, his side was the real bumpkin.
"Sigh, no choice—our Dragonlord can only use talismans, can't handle high-tech stuff, so we can only spray back."
Fortunately, the Mu Yang was using a C6 Dragonlord with super thick HP—even while outputting and taking all those hits, the Dragonlord's health bar remained sturdy.
But just then, someone with a water cannon appeared.
The person fired a water bubble to apply Hydro to the character, then the sniper followed up with a Pyro sniper shot, actually triggering a Vaporize reaction.
"No... Natlan people can even trigger Vaporize reactions?"
In that instant, it stirred up some bad memories for Mu Yang.
Like getting solo-killed by the iced-up Childe during his legend quest in the rain, or getting obliterated by the Electro-Pyro sword in Inazuma while farming the Abyss.
No wonder miHoYo thought the Pilgrimage of the Returning Flame Saint's Night was difficult and specifically provided an Easy Mode.
For players with low levels, just that one Vaporize hit earlier would have straight-up killed a character.
After dealing with the surrounding Natlan warriors, he hadn't operated the character for long before encountering new enemies again.
Good news: This time, the enemies were wielding cold weapons.
Bad news: They all had Visions.
Vaporize, Melt, Burning, Overload...
Elemental reactions that were usually used to cheese enemies were now all being used on the player.
Mu Yang once swapped in Kazuha, wanting to rely on his Elemental Skill to group enemies and reduce wind resistance, but in the instant they grouped up, he got hit by Pyro and Electro in succession, directly triggering Overload and blowing Kazuha to death.
"Isn't this Normal Mode way too difficult?" Mu Yang's brows furrowed into a knot.
Based on Genshin's style, Normal Mode shouldn't be this hard—it should ensure 80% of players can clear it on the first try.
But now, probably 80% of players couldn't clear this event.
"Could it be that because they added Easy Mode, they went all out and cranked up Normal Mode's difficulty without restraint?" Mu Yang boldly speculated.
"Let's see what Easy Mode is like."
Mu Yang exited the game, re-entered, and restarted the challenge.
When the system popped up the prompt, he selected Easy Mode.
Then, he couldn't hold it together anymore.
"The warriors are only level 20, and they even infight each other?"
"No machine guns, no sniper rifles, no Vaporize reactions?"
"Is this Easy Mode? It's clearly a free pass mode!"