The gate of the Temple of the North Wind Wolf was already standing wide open.
The two of them made their way to the end of the passage. Ahead lay a shallow basin of water, deep enough to cover their ankles.
Several chunks of slime condensate were scattered on the ground.
"Someone killed the slimes already," Diluc said.
Since slimes did not always drop condensate, it was hard to judge how many monsters had been here originally.
They jumped down, water splashing around their boots.
Jensen crouched and took out a container, carefully gathering the three pieces of slime condensate.
"You are interested in this stuff?" Diluc asked.
"It is great for making drinks. You should try using it for brewing. The taste might be surprisingly good."
"You put this stuff in your drinks?!"
Diluc's voice suddenly rose a notch before he forcibly reined it back in.
Even so, he could not help rubbing at his throat.
He had drunk quite a lot of Good Hunter's iced drinks in the past. Jensen always treated him with those. And he could not deny that he really liked the flavors.
"They are not poisonous and they do not hurt you. What are you so afraid of?"
Jensen sounded completely unconcerned.
Diluc clenched his fist and silently swore that he would never drink iced beverages from Good Hunter ever again.
Collecting the slime condensate had not taken much time.
They continued down the corridor.
Up ahead, a pair of flame jet traps blocked the way.
One was on the left, one on the right, spaced apart at regular intervals. Between them was a narrow safe zone, and there was more slime condensate on the floor there.
Proof that someone had been through.
If that person had safely crossed the first flame jet and reached the safe area, then they definitely had a way through the second.
"Time to start praying Kaeya is still alive," Diluc said.
Kaeya could temporarily freeze the mechanisms with Cryo, making a safe path.
But now that the traps were active again, it meant some time had passed since Kaeya came through.
If he really had run into a Cryo Abyss Mage...
"Let us go."
Jensen waved his hand.
Two stone walls rose up in front of the vents, blocking the flames entirely, and the two men simply ran along the other side.
Jensen even casually grabbed another piece of slime condensate from the safe zone as they passed.
"That is convenient," Diluc admitted.
Even as a Pyro user, forcing his way through those flames would have left him looking a bit sorry. He would not be injured, sure, but his clothes definitely would not come out unscathed.
There were no monsters at all along the way.
Soon, another pool blocked their path. This one was filled with spikes beneath the surface, making swimming completely impossible.
Jensen simply ignored it.
He raised another Rockwall beneath his feet and walked straight over the water, using the stones as stepping stones.
Diluc followed right behind him.
"Is your Geo power bottomless?" Diluc could not help complaining.
The energy stored in a Vision was limited. After each use, it needed to draw elemental power from the environment to recharge, so there was always some gap between activations.
You had to wait for the Vision to finish charging.
"You tell me," Jensen replied with a small smile.
A Vision was an external organ for channeling power. He had no such thing.
"Tch."
Diluc clicked his tongue again.
"Shh."
Jensen gestured for silence.
They were close to the upper level of the Temple of the North Wind Wolf, and he could feel a strange chill ahead.
As a Pyro user, Diluc was just as sensitive to this piercing cold.
They exchanged a look.
Then, in perfect synchrony, they split to the left and right, sticking close to the walls as they approached the main hall.
That was where the cold was coming from.
The air was saturated with Cryo.
Aside from that, there was no sign of any other elemental flow.
"So we really did hit a matching element," Diluc muttered. This guy really was a crow's mouth.
It was a good thing the one suffering was Kaeya this time.
The fact that the hall was still saturated with Cryo meant that the stalemate between Kaeya and the Abyss Mage had not yet ended.
Which meant he was still alive.
Both of them leaned against their respective walls and peeked inside.
The hall was covered in frost, ice crawling over the floor and pillars. Kaeya's hair and clothes were glazed with a thin crust of ice.
Opposite him, the Cryo Abyss Mage stood behind its shimmering shield, chanting continuously as it drew Cryo element from the ley lines in an endless flow.
Even with Cryo so plentiful here, Kaeya's Vision simply could not draw in and cycle energy as fast as the mage was leeching it directly from the earth.
Jensen exhaled silently.
That was close.
If he had not happened to bump into Diluc just as he came out of the Temple of the West Wind Eagle, he really might have left Kaeya to rot here.
If he wanted to level up, every Vision holder was crucial. If one died, he would probably lose several levels' worth of potential.
Diluc drew the greatsword from his back.
The two of them exchanged a series of quick hand gestures, then nodded to each other.
A surge of intense Pyro burst out at the entrance like a sudden blaze.
Diluc swung his greatsword down.
A huge bird made of pure flame burst from the blade.
"Dawn."
His voice rang through the hall.
Everywhere the bird flew, the frost and ice shattered or evaporated, dripping away as water.
At the same time, Jensen stepped into the doorway. A violent gust of wind blasted outward from him, as if a storm had descended from the sky itself.
His hands were still wrapped up in bandages, but they closed around an invisible sword, and he slashed along the gale.
"Windwave Slash."
Like a towering wave, Anemo surged forth at even greater speed, quickly catching up to the flaming bird and crashing into it from behind.
Boom.
Wind fanned the flames, and the Pyro exploded outward in an instant.
The combined elemental blast engulfed the entire hall.
The Cryo Abyss Mage took the full brunt of it.
Its Cryo shield burned through its energy reserve in a heartbeat and shattered into glittering fragments.
A shadow fell over it.
Diluc's figure appeared overhead, his greatsword still wreathed in flames as he brought it down, merciless, toward the exposed mage.