flstandardbreds Chapter 148 Istaru: Hehe!
Chapter 148 Istaru: Hehe!
“Zhongli used that contract to introduce us to Heraqti, which is you. He was there as a candidate before you agreed.”
There's a question I've always wanted to ask.
The guardian of justice paused and gestured for Kiana to speak first.
"Why did I travel back in time, and why did I leave behind history as Herakti, the creator god of light?"
"Because you are special."
Am I special?
“That’s right. The so-called Descendants are beings that descend from outside Teyvat and are comparable in size to the world. Therefore, Descendants are usually not recorded by the World Tree, and you are an extremely special being even among Descendants.”
“You possess the power of time, just like Ishtar, and you can even travel through time at will, something she cannot do. Originally, if the Descendants were to be recorded by the World Tree for some reason, you would never be recorded by the World Tree for the reasons mentioned above. Although Tenri is a Descendant, he is also recorded by the World Tree. Therefore, you need to go back to the past and use another identity and name to create your own history, so that you can appear in the World Tree's records.”
"Now that my future self has already completed this step for me, shouldn't we move on to the next step?"
"Unfortunately, no."
"why?"
"The future is the future, and the present is the present. As I said, you are special. Your timeline is different from ours and is independent of the river of time. Therefore, only if you experience the future in the present can there be a record of the past. This is something that even Teyvat's predetermined past and future cannot change. Only you can carry it out yourself."
"Ugh! This is such a hassle!"
Kiana scratched her head and then closed her eyes, her breathing gradually becoming stable and restrained.
As if she had fallen asleep, a moment later, you could hear Kiana's soft breathing.
Suddenly, a foot stepped out of Kiana's body, and then another Kiana slowly emerged from the body on the throne.
"Who are you...?" asked the guardian of justice.
"Me?" Kiana was taken aback for a moment, then laughed, "I'm Kiana!"
"If you are Kiana, then who is the Kiana on the throne?"
"We are all Kiana," [Kiana] said. "To be precise, the one sitting on the throne is a slice of me who just closed my eyes; you can also think of me as a clone."
“Slicing... huh, I see. So why is slicing necessary? Now that the passage has stabilized, you don’t need to sit on it all the time.”
"Well, how should I put it? Although the channel has stabilized, energy still needs to be supplied every moment. I'm not very good at long-distance, precise energy transmission, nor do I intend to master it. So, it would be better to leave a fragment behind and let her supply energy in my place. In fact, her only task is to supply energy, and theoretically, she can take all my energy to provide energy to the False Heaven. This way, you won't have to worry about the False Heaven suddenly shattering one day."
"…Fine."
The Keeper of Heavenly Principle responded with a complicated expression. It wasn't that she felt there was anything wrong with it. It was just that, thinking of the power she had sensed from Kiana earlier, the Keeper of Heavenly Principle felt that Kiana was making a mountain out of a molehill.
For the maintainer of the laws of nature, who possesses spatial abilities, she could clearly sense that Kiana's power source was directly from the imaginary space, and that the total amount of energy she could contain was several times greater than the total amount of the four Shadow Rulers plus their master.
Even just now, she clearly sensed that Kiana had used only one-tenth of her energy to equal the amount of the original gods of the entire Sky Island and the faith power provided by the seven divine thrones.
For such a being, even if the energy transmitted over a long distance is lost, it should be as insignificant as a drop of water in the ocean.
"Speaking of which, does this throne have other functions? When I destroyed the throne before, I could clearly feel that its connection to the Heart of God was definitely not just a simple matter of allowing the Seven Rulers of the Mortal World to use the power of the Ancient Dragons."
"...Yes, it does indeed have another function. That is to transmit the power of faith of the seven rulers in the human world to the throne of gods through the heart of gods, and then transform it through the throne of gods into one of the energy sources to maintain the false heaven."
So that explains why the seven gods who have appeared so far are not interested in the Heart of God. After all, the main function of the Heart of God is to transmit the power of their believers' faith back to Sky Island to power the False Heaven, while what they themselves gain is a partial right to use the power of the Ancient Dragons.
This improvement is negligible for the seven gods who won the Demon God War through their own strength, but it also creates another problem.
"If I remember correctly, Wendy hasn't done anything worthwhile since Mondstadt was founded, right? How can he gain Faith Power like that?"
"Wendy? Oh, you mean that friar who never does anything productive?"
For some reason, Kiana always felt that the tone of the person who upheld justice was full of resentment.
"That guy dares to be so audacious and idle every day because he has some connection with Ishtar and because the Heart of God only cares about the power of human faith. After all, the Heart of God only cares about the power of human faith in the gods and has absolutely nothing to do with whether the god is doing anything right!"
"Um... so what's his relationship with Ishtar?"
"Ha~"
The guardian of justice slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air to calm himself down and then said.
"You may not know this, but whether it is me or the other three rulers, we all have our shadows in the human world. Ishtar's shadow is a bard from the old Mondstadt era, and the wind spirit representing hope and turning point, as represented by Venti's original appearance."
"Is that why Wendy and Ishtar look so alike? Because he himself is one of Ishtar's shadows?"
The guardian of justice nodded: "You could say that."
"But why is it a man?"
"I don't know about that. After all, although the shadows they cast are our shadows, they essentially represent the possibilities of the four of us. Just like my shadow... never mind, I'd better not say anything more."
There's some juicy gossip! Kiana instinctively felt that there must be some big gossip that interested her, but seeing the Keeper of Justice's hesitant expression, Kiana hesitated for a moment about whether to dig deeper.
On the other side, the guardian of justice, seeing Kiana struggling alone, finally sighed and began to speak.
"Actually, it's nothing much. It's just that her personality is completely different from mine, and she got married and had a family down there. She's probably still observing things beyond the world on the Teyvat border. Of course, she didn't take her daughter with her; instead, she sent her daughter to live with Mondstadt."
Observing the world's boundaries, and having a daughter fostered in Mondstadt... all of this seems to point to one person. If it is her, then based on Kiana's understanding of her, her personality is indeed different from that of the maintainer of the natural order.
"The person you're talking about, the Sustainer, isn't it Alice? And that daughter must be Klee, right?"
"How...how did you know?"
"That's just a guess. After all, if we're talking about any foster children in Mondstadt who are well-known enough, it's only Klee. Besides, Ms. Iris fits your description... To be honest, your personalities are indeed worlds apart from Iris's."
"That's why I didn't want to talk about it! Compared to me, her personality is simply awful. I saw the Hilichurl production base she proposed to the Knights of Favonius. What a production base! It's like they don't even treat Hilichurls as living beings! They're even more beastly than the old nobles of Mondstadt! Even Klee has been corrupted by her, playing with bombs every day. Doesn't she know how dangerous those bombs are...?"
Listening to the resentful rant of the guardian of justice, Kiana took a step back without making a sound.
It's clear she harbors a lot of resentment towards Alice, otherwise she wouldn't be complaining so openly and oblivious to everyone else.
But towards the end, the tone suddenly changes, and they start talking at length about how wonderful Klee is, acting like complete idiot parents.
While Klee is indeed her child in a certain sense, there's no need to act like a fanatic and forcefully praise her own child!
Considering that letting her continue saying this was not a solution, Kiana finally spoke up to interrupt the maintainer of justice.
"Klee knows, so can we talk about it later?"
"Ahem, excuse me!"
Realizing he had somewhat lost his composure, the guardian of justice coughed twice to ease the awkwardness and then asked.
So...do you have any other questions?
"There are still some. What's the situation on Nata's side? Why can't I sense the presence of the ley lines?"
"Because Nata was the base of the Nibelungs' rebellion against the laws of nature after they returned, Sky Island's infiltration there was minimal. Also, for some reason, Nata's ley lines were shattered. In the end, one of the demons we sent sacrificed himself to create a being called the Kingdom of Night God to replace the shattered ley lines."
"I see. In other words, Nata is the true land without gods and also the kingdom of dragons, right?"
"Yes."
"Then what about the Vulcan later on?"
"That's another story... but it's too long to tell in a long story, so I'll keep it short. In short, the hero of the Nata people signed a contract that granted him the power to fight against the dragons. After that, all sorts of things happened, and now Nata is a country where humans and dragons coexist. Anyway, if you want to carry out your plans in Nata, my advice is that it's best not to."
“I know that the situation in Nata is a bit complicated. I plan to go to Xumi first and then make further plans.”
“Sumeru…that’s true. This way you can also learn a little about the history of the God of Light from there, which will help you in how you create history later.”
"Um, if possible, I would prefer you not to mention that identity in front of me, right?"
"I don't really care, but how should I address you? Let me make it clear first, I can't bring myself to call you 'Master'."
"Just call me Kiana. If possible, I hope Istar will also call me Kiana instead of 'Master.' After all, it's enough that someone in the family calls me 'Queen' every day... The key is that no matter what I tell her, she'll always call me back after a while."
"Your Majesty...you're talking about your familiar, right? Come to think of it, it is indeed a bit...awkward?"
Why is it phrased as a question?
"No, it's nothing."
"Alright, I should head back now, since Zhongli is still there. I need to see Zhongli off. If I don't leave soon, I'm afraid I'll be late, and Mei will get angry."
After saying goodbye to the maintainer of justice, Kiana returned to that space.
Zhongli breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Kiana return. If Kiana hadn't returned, he would have gone straight to Sky Island to confront her.
After all, Kiana was his mentor and friend. It was he who signed the contract with those four that got Kiana involved. If something really happened to Kiana, his conscience wouldn't allow it!
"Is it done?"
"It's done. I just didn't expect you to have that kind of contract with those four from Sky Island. Now you've dragged me into this mess. If I'd known nothing would have happened, I shouldn't have thought so much about it..."
Looking at Kiana's resentful eyes, Zhongli turned away, sweating profusely, and said, "Although I made a contract with them, it didn't stipulate that I should actively cooperate with them. The current situation is entirely your own choice, Miss Kiana, and has little to do with me."
"...Fine, I'll let it go this time since you look guilty. But if there's a next time, I won't forgive you so easily, you old rascal!"
"Stinky, stinky dad...? Miss Kiana, what's wrong with you...?"
Oh no! Because Zhongli had just apologized to him guiltily, and his voice was almost identical to his father's, he had unconsciously shouted it out!
Kiana, her eyes swirling and her expression confused, tried to explain to Zhongli. In the end, it was Zhongli's high emotional intelligence that calmed Kiana down and cleared up the misunderstanding.
When Kiana returned to Liyue with Zhongli, it was already dawn. As expected, Mei caught Kiana the moment she stepped into her temporary residence.
So Kiana knelt in the yard, enjoying Mei's "care" alone, until the sun was high in the sky and Mei realized it was lunchtime, then she let Kiana go.
For some reason, Bella didn't come to mediate immediately this time. She even stood at the doorway, half her body exposed, emanating black energy as she stared at Kiana.
Whenever Kiana approached to ask Bella the reason, Bella would angrily puff out her cheeks and turn away.
Kiana was left completely bewildered until she later learned the truth from Mei after she calmed down.
It turns out that Kiana and Zhongli hadn't been apart for just one day, but for several days.
During this time, Mei did go out to look for Kiana, but she didn't get any information until a person who called herself Istaru came to Mei and Bella and told them about Kiana and her... identity as Kiana's servant.
Hearing this, Kiana finally understood what was going on. She should have known that this matter was definitely related to Istar!
"Damn Istaru! I'll never forgive you!"