At the mouth of the cavern beneath those spine-like ridgelines, two figures slipped inside.
The instant Eula crossed the threshold, pain prickled over her skin.
Not far ahead pulsed a massive heart, red light throbbing through blackened veins.
She frowned. Same as always—the closer she got, the worse she felt. Normally she only dared peek from the entrance. But tonight, under Su Xuan's lead, she gritted her teeth and pressed on.
"Bravery is expensive," Su Xuan said. "If you're uncomfortable, say so."
A soft shimmer spread around her. A telekinetic barrier—pressure gone, air easier, nausea muted.
Eula exhaled, surprised at how quickly relief came.
"We went over this," he continued as they approached the organ. "Twalyin was corrupted by swallowing Durin's blood. Deep-sea Abyss stuff. Mortals shouldn't touch it."
"...Thanks," Eula murmured, heels clicking as she fell into step behind him.
Up close, the heart thrummed under his palm—each beat rattling his forearm, thudding through the cave until there was nothing left but the sound of life refusing to die.
Eula watched his back as silence stretched, and—unhelpfully—her mind replayed his earlier teasing.
Day one: the witch Lisa.
Day two: the dandelion knight Jean.
Day three: the wave knight… me?
Even romantic light novels wouldn't dare run that plot.
This wasn't "winning love," it was storming a fortress.
And then he'd tossed off, "If you're in a hurry, you can cut the line."
Utterly outrageous.
An unforgivable provocation.
She glanced at him again—and her gaze caught on the protective shimmer he'd placed over her.
Warmth pierced the annoyance. She was still annoyed, but… curious too.
How exactly was he planning to make her fold so easily?
Her diary pinged to life.
[Law of Reason] works on living systems too.
With sufficient signature data (DNA, protein morphology, organ-level interfaces), I can understand and reproduce.
With something like Durin, an alchemical lifeform, that comprehension is straightforward.
The core—this heart—is the data vault.
To create a "Durin," you seed the core, then wait while the system evolves. Think petri dish, but for dragons.
Two essential data lines inside:
Flesh of native Teyvatian dragonkind (hyper-pluripotent, can diverge into many life paths),
Abyssal stabilization, which forces that pluripotency into only one outcome: dragon—then locks the profile into Durin.
That loop is why Durin can revive endlessly so long as the heart stands: the system just restarts.
For me, the snag: I can only reconstruct the heart, not a full dragon. The growth-phase recombination that builds its body isn't stored as fixed schema here—it emerges during development.
So I could make the heart… and then wait ages for a dragon to grow. Useless for my purposes.
Fix: Purge the Abyssal stabilization; the loop collapses.
KQ Mirror can't "dispel" Abyss on Durin (it's not a debuff for him), but I can rewind the heart to a pre-Abyss state.
A prismatic mirror blossomed out of thin air.
A few breaths.
The black threads in the heart vanished.
Eula blinked, awestruck. "That mirror… If you shined it on Mondstadt's soil and rewound time—would the land—"
"Smart," Su Xuan smiled. "It's exactly that unreasonable."
Of course it was. His powers were absurd; his tools were ruder.
"The heart is still dragonflesh, so I can't 'remove' it. But with Abyss severed the revival loop dies. Alchemically? Priceless. We'll send it to Lisa."
He wrapped the organ in telekinesis and tucked it away as Eula's mouth twitched.
"So after all that, Lisa's the biggest winner tonight?"
"Jealous?"
"Me?" She huffed—and said nothing more.
Her diary chimed again.
While storing Durin's heart, the Wave Knight mocked me: "You trekked all the way for a Ruin Grader and a useless heart?"
In truth, I felt nothing—and almost laughed.
At headquarters, Lisa set down her tea and winked at Amber. "See? I told you Eula would be fine. He isn't a petty man."
"Feels like they're getting along," Amber sighed in relief.
Meanwhile, Eula panicked. "I didn't mock you! Don't frame me just to punish me—why were you amused?"
No answer from him—only more text.
Why amused? Because Eula has no idea what the real treasure on Dragonspine is.
The thing I can definitely parse and replicate.
The heaven-sent spike of divine judgment, fired from Celestia itself.
The Skyfrost Nail.
Eula's breath caught. "The Skyfrost Nail?"
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