Chapter 63: Paimon Kaeya Ningguang (Patreon)

[Paimon: So that's how it is?]

[Gusttave: Of course. So, Lord Paikaining, would you permit me to stay in Teyvat for a while?]

[Paimon: Paimon is Paimon. Who's Paikaining?]

[Gusttave: Haha, so you're Little White Flyer, Shorty Gourd, White Floating Spirit, Little White Flying Ant, Silver Companion Star, Emergency Food, Best Companion, Mouth of the Gods, Soft White Elemental Flying Object, Little Thing at My Side, Sky-Splitting White Iron Little Gourd, Talking Little Fairy, Mascot, External Organ, Work Assistance Machine, Minister Paimon, White Gingerbread Man, Orchid Dumpling Bird, Reliable Guide, Mysterious Flying Pet, Flying Object, White High-Intelligence Floating Assistant Unit, Simple-Minded Floater, Latest Model Toy, Miss Paimonovna, and Paimon, hey!]

[Gusttave: Anyone who didn't know better would think Paikaining was the Primordial, the Primordial One, the Primordial Principle, the Primordial Person, the Primordial Right Principle, the Primordial Lord, the Lord of the High Heavens, the True King, the King of Kings, the Heavenly Principles, the Master of Heaven, the Master of the Four Shadows, the Master of the Seven Calamities, the Lord of the Seven Calamities, the Sovereign Ruling the Nations of the Earth, the Right Principle Ruling the Nations of the Earth, the Fell King Who Destroys the Nations of the Earth, the Winged One, the Father of All Things, the Mother of the Gods, the First Descender, the Eternal Throne in Heaven, Nalayan, the Great Sovereign of the High Heavens, the Master of the Throne, the Plunderer Above the Sky, Phanes, the Creator, the Ruler Allied with Love. Paikaining, huh!]

[Paimon: What is all this supposed to mean?]

Looking at the huge string of names Gusttave had rattled off, Paimon felt her head spinning.

But just because Paimon didn't get it didn't mean no one else did.

[Venti: …]

[Zhongli: …]

[Raiden Ei: …]

[Nahida: …]

[Furina: …]

[Mavuika: This really is…]

[Nastasia: …]

[Anna Hongta: …]

[Alice: Is this where I say "typical of you"?]

The real world.

Paimon was absolutely livid.

Her little cape snapped in the wind. Both tiny hands clutched at her own hair, and her face looked like she'd swallowed a whole slime raw.

"Paikaining? What kind of weird name is that! And White Flyer, Shorty Gourd, White Floating Spirit—Paimon is not a floating spirit! Paimon is Paimon! Paimon!"

She puffed up with rage and flew right up to Gusttave, poking his nose with one tiny finger, her round eyes glaring wide. "And Emergency Food! Who told you Paimon is Emergency Food?! Paimon here is Teyvat's best guide!"

Beside her, Lumine folded her arms, and a subtle light flickered in her golden eyes.

She had caught the long string of names Gusttave had just recited.

The Primordial One, the Heavenly Principles, Phanes, the First Descender, the Eternal Throne in Heaven…

To an ordinary person, these terms meant nothing. To Lumine, though, they were several key clues.

After all, the one who had stopped her and her brother had called himself the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.

And now Gusttave seemed to be deliberately hinting that Paimon was that very Heavenly Principle.

[March 7th: So can somebody please explain what all of this means?]

[Gusttave: That's a long story.]

[Gusttave: [The Year of the Dove and the Branch]

The Eternal Throne in Heaven arrived, and the world was made new. Then the True King, the Primordial One, began a war against the masters of the old world, the seven terrible kings. Those terrible kings were dragons.

The Primordial One made shadows of itself that shone with light. The number of the shadows was four.

[Phanes, or the Primordial One]

The Primordial One may be Phanes. It had wings and wore a crown, and was born from an egg, impossible to tell male from female. But for a world to be created, the eggshell must be broken. Phanes—the Primordial One—instead used the eggshell to seal off "the universe" from "the world in miniature."

[Forty-Odd Years After the Branch]

Forty winters buried the fire, and forty summers set the sea boiling. All seven great kings were defeated, and all seven kingdoms bowed their heads to the heavens. The Primordial One, the Great King, began the creation of heaven and earth. For the sake of "us"—its most pitiable people would appear upon this land.

…

[The Four Hundred-Odd Years After the Branch]

Mountains and rivers took shape, and the seas and oceans received the rebels and the disobedient. The Primordial One and one of the shadows made birds, beasts, and fish. Together they also made flowers, grasses, and trees. Last of all, they made humankind.

[The Year the Ark Opened]

The Primordial One had a sacred plan for humankind. So long as people were happy, it rejoiced.

[The Year After the Ark Opened]

People tilled the land and brought in their first harvest. People dug into the earth and found precious metal for the first time. People gathered together and wrote their first poem.

[The Year of the Carnival]

If famine came, food and sweet rain fell from the sky. If barrenness spread, the earth would bring forth ore. If melancholy crept in, the high heavens would answer with a voice.

The only forbidden thing was losing to temptation. But the passage of temptation had already been sealed.

…

[The Year of the Burial of Fire]

The second throne in the heavens arrived, as if the great war of the creation had begun anew. On that day, the heavens toppled and the earth split apart.

From here the dark age began.]

[Venti: I didn't hear a thing!]

[Zhongli: Same here!]

[Raiden Ei: Me too!]

[Furina: M-me too!]

[Alice: There aren't two suns in the sky! I'm wholly devoted to the Heavenly Principles, with not a shred of disloyalty. Loyal!]

…

At this moment, the true upper echelon of Teyvat, every figure of godly rank and above, wished they could stab their own ears deaf and gouge their own eyes blind.

Why had they looked? Why had they listened?!

Fontaine, Palais Mermonia, Furina's bedroom.

The sunlight was as bright as ever, yet Furina felt as though she had fallen into an ice cave.

Her slender fingers gripped the edge of the black notebook, her knuckles white with strain.

Forbidden words reflected in her heterochromatic eyes, her pupils contracting in extreme shock and terror.

…Primordial… … King… the Year of the Burial of Fire… …

The words were like red-hot branding irons, searing into her understanding.

She was no fool. As an actress who had played the Hydro Archon for five hundred years, and who knew all too well the majesty and rules of Celestia, she grasped the horrifying truth behind these terse lines almost instantly.

It overturned the very foundation of Teyvat's current order, a cold tracing back of the Heavenly Principles' claim to legitimacy.

It was over. She had learned her boss's dirty secrets, and now everything was over!

Cold sweat instantly soaked the thin back of her clothes, and the clammy chill made her tremble uncontrollably.

Her silver-white and deep-blue hair clung to her pale cheeks. She felt as if she were standing naked at the edge of a ten-thousand-zhang cliff, and below her feet lay the abyss called truth, ready to shatter her body to pieces.

Her five hundred years of acting, of deceiving the Heavenly Principles in order to save… seemed so small, so dangerous, before beings who stood at the summit of the world!

Could this "fake Hydro Archon" act of hers really fool those lofty existences?