Awakened from Nothing

Advent of Emptiness

Alone in the abyss of the void, a place far beyond human reach, he stood. Or perhaps he laid down. Or perhaps he simply existed. Once, he had considered humans and gods to be friends, brothers, sisters, even lovers in some cases. Yet now, only a handful remained. Immortality had burdened his thoughts, but with time, he found relative peace, choosing to spend five centuries away from both humans and gods.

He grappled with the weight of his past, a coward who fled the aftermath of the cataclysm to mend his fractured mind. The weight of those memories was torturous.

Slumber had embraced him, though he remained conscious of the energies emanating from the eight glowing stones embedded in his leather belt. Each bore a unique color and symbol. The eighth stone, white and singular, represented his own power—an essence of nothingness, neither light nor dark.

As he gazed into the void, thoughts tugged at him, urging a return to the world he had left behind. A world still scarred by the cataclysm he escaped. And so, he resolved to reemerge.

Consciousness rekindled within him, cradled by a gentle warmth. His eyes, once veiled in centuries of slumber, opened to mechanical lamps casting a soft glow upon the intricately designed stone slab that he sat upon. Beyond him lay layers of ice and snow, as if guarding his apparent tomb.

With a flash of silver, his eyes ignited, and the white stone on his belt gleamed. His touch reduced some of the ice to ephemeral dust carried by the wind. A parched throat begged for water, and he summoned Pyromancy to melt the ice, sating his thirst.

Through icy caverns he wandered, a ceaseless march that stretched through an eternity. Ice and stone crumbled at his command, his silver eyes igniting each passage.

Finally, he breached the surface, met by a biting snowstorm. Figures wielding elemental weapons emerged, hostility in their stance. Their fate was sealed in an instant as they raised their weapons, their forms reduced to mere fleeting particles in the wind. He scorned their imposition, a reflection of his historical laziness even as a god.

Baal's reprimands echoed in his memory, a solemn reminder of his sloth. He mused on the fate of the seven, doubting that many would recall his existence.

Unperturbed by the cold, he trudged through the blizzard, a crimson crystalfly catching his eye. Memories surfaced of the last human he encountered.

???: "Indeed... That woman..."

Painful grief, consuming hatred, and overwhelming love, he remembered it burning within her, his old friend. He released the crystalfly, watching it flutter away towards Barbatos' old domain.

With purpose, he followed the crystalfly's path, departing the frigid mountain for a temperate plain where the wind carried a sweet fragrance.

As the sun lowered below the horizon, outside of Mondstadt's cathedral, Venti clutched his abdomen, reeling from a vicious kick delivered by a Fatui harbinger named La Signora. She loomed over him, a sadistic smirk playing on her lips. Her presence commanded attention, a tall and poised figure radiating authority.