"This cave seems quite deep." In the deep cavern, Balladeer looked back at the faint, blurry light behind him, which only emitted a slight glow, and remarked with a hint of surprise.
Who would have thought that a random cave he walked into could be this deep?
Although it was incredibly dim before him, Balladeer didn't feel any discomfort. Mere darkness couldn't awaken the emotion called "fear" in his heart.
On the contrary, Balladeer was somewhat annoyed now. The cave was incredibly steep, and after walking so far, he still hadn't found a place to rest his feet.
"Keep going. If I still can't find a suitable spot..." Balladeer didn't continue. If his body weren't currently injured, he would have probably used brute force to flatten the cave long ago.
Behind him was the faintly glowing cave entrance, and before him was the lightless cave bottom. As Balladeer continued, he grew increasingly impatient.
Just as Balladeer was about to blast a flat surface in the cave, a glimmer of light suddenly appeared before his eyes.
The light was amber-colored, very similar to the glow emitted by the noctilucous jade unique to Liyue.
"Oh? Could it be a noctilucous jade mine?" A hint of pleasant surprise appeared on Balladeer's face. High-quality noctilucous jade was quite valuable, and this place was deep in the mountains.
This was simply an excellent source of funds prepared for the Fatui. He quickly stepped forward, but what appeared before Balladeer was not a vein embedded with bright noctilucous jade, but a jade shield.
Upon the jade shield were abstruse runes and a profound, restrained power.
He punched the jade shield, but besides causing a ripple-like undulation on its surface, there was no other reaction.
"The Geo Archon's power?" Balladeer said with some uncertainty and surprise. This was his first time in Liyue, and he had only heard about everything concerning the Geo Archon.
So he wasn't sure if this jade shield was from the Geo Archon's hand.
Balladeer looked up at the scene beyond the jade shield. Behind this small opening was a vast, immeasurable space.
He even suspected that this large cavern might have hollowed out the entire valley. On the cavern's ceiling and walls, countless jade and mineral deposits, some Balladeer recognized and some he didn't, emitted various colors of light.
These splendid lights intertwined, illuminating the space within the jade shield as if it were daytime.
The bottom of the large cavern was unnaturally flat, and the minerals and jade that grew freely on the walls and ceiling seemed to have deliberately avoided the vast floor of the cavern.
"Is that... the big tree at the entrance?!" Balladeer rubbed his eyes, seemingly unable to believe what he was seeing.
On the flat cavern floor, a leylines tree, carved from the same mold as the one at the entrance, grew out. In terms of size, this one was even considerably larger than the one outside the cave!
But how could such a large tree grow so deep within the earth? Just as Balladeer was wondering, he suddenly saw the leylines tree move.
"Rumble!"
Balladeer's vision shook along with the earth. It was as if the tree's movement had summoned an earthquake.
In Balladeer's eyes, the large tree, which should have been standing still, rapidly grew in place.
Then, Balladeer saw a massive figure break through the earth's crust and emerge from the ground.
That so-called "big tree" from earlier was this thing's tail!
Dragon scales carved from jade, bright and ferocious dragon horns, chaotic and mad crimson eyes—the creature before him was clearly a giant rock dragon hidden deep beneath the earth!
"Damn... damn it! What... what is this thing!" Balladeer felt his luck was so bad for the first time. First, he had a tangled fight with the inscrutable Albedo, then he couldn't defeat Morgott and fled in a hurry.
He didn't expect to find something so terrifying even when looking for a place to rest. Why hadn't he noticed before that his constitution attracted so much trouble?
Balladeer quietly retreated a few steps, looking for an opportunity to escape. As for testing the giant dragon before him, he didn't even consider it.
The dragon's body alone looked like a mountain. With such a physique, even if he couldn't use elemental power, it could still crush him to death.
"Human... human. Come... over. (Go... quickly)." A superimposed, grand voice came from the dragon's mouth. It actually wanted Balladeer to stay.
"What are you?" Balladeer stopped his retreat. He was now rapidly thinking in his mind about what to do next.
"Save... save me (No... not like this), reward... reward you with an immortal body! (I... I myself cannot)"
It was as if two dragons were speaking at the same time, but Balladeer only heard the dragon's temptation.
The other voice was too faint, serving only as background noise amidst the dragon's roar, which was powerful enough to shake mountains and forests.
After the dragon finished speaking, it completely descended into madness. Each swing of its limbs was an earthquake.
Tongues of fire, waves of water, thunder, frost... various powers surged behind the jade shield, destroying the great cavern beyond recognition.
Each of these attacks could overturn rivers and mountains, shattering the earth. But they were all swallowed by the bright yellow jade shield.
"The power of a god." Balladeer looked at the world-destroying scene behind the jade shield, then at the still-standing jade shield, and swallowed, utterly shocked.
"Liyue, I remember it's Childe. Did he offend the Jester?" Balladeer merely glanced at it before fleeing without looking back.
After witnessing Azhdaha's power, Balladeer harbored strong doubts about whether Childe could obtain the Geo Archon's Gnosis... "You are..."
Kaeya, with the Knights of Favonius behind him, stared intently at Morgott, asking with some wariness.
It wasn't that he was overly cautious, but the fellow before him looked exactly like the monsters from poems and storybooks.
"Hmm... you should have met before. He's the same type as that dragon." Morgott looked at Albedo's research notes in his hand and replied casually.
"Dragon?" Kaeya raised an eyebrow.
"It's that Lanssangx who comes here every day to freeload..."
"Lanssangx!"
"Oh! So it's her!" Kaeya immediately reacted. Lanssangx was always freeloading, causing those who knew her true identity to automatically overlook her status as a dragon.
"Haha, it seems she's caused you some trouble." Morgott closed the book and returned it to its original place.
The font was too small; he found it tiring to read. His horns were already nearly pressing against his eyes, and if he didn't protect his vision carefully, he might go blind.
"It's fine. Compared to the help she's given us, it's nothing." Albedo shook his head and replied.
As one of the first to know Lanssangx's identity, Albedo knew how much effort Lanssangx had put in during the Dragon Scourge.
"Then I'm relieved. It seems I don't need to compensate her for anything." Morgott nodded.
He knew the personalities of those dragon fellows; every time they came to Leyndell, they always gave Godwyn a headache for a while.
"In that case, are you also here to find Yu Jin?" Kaeya looked up at the Golden Tree not far away. No matter how many times he saw it, it was always so astonishing.
"Naturally. If you all could tell me the location of my King, that would be even better."
Morgott said, pulling out several bright rings from his cloak. He placed them on Albedo's research table.
"These are called Runes in our land. You can understand them as elemental polymers without usage conditions; they are the source of power in our world."
"There's no elden ring here, so they can't fully exert their power. But for research or strengthening the body, they're perfectly fine."
"Consider them my gift to you all."
"Is that so?" Albedo looked down at the Runes shimmering with an inexplicable glow. He then looked up at the brilliant golden light in the Sky; their colors were very similar.
"Gift?" Kaeya muttered a few words, then took out a map from the team behind him.
He said to Morgott, "This is a map of our area. You are here now, and Yu Jin is here."
Looking at the two places Kaeya pointed to, Morgott nodded. He turned to glance at the Golden Tree, then transformed into an afterimage and vanished from everyone's sight.
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