Ikhtiyar withdrew her power. The black-red flames dancing around her body quickly extinguished.
She walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The deep valley below was nothing but a mass of thick, heavy darkness; the bottom was nowhere in sight.
She removed a device equipped with a square screen from her waist, held it in her hand, and extended her arm into the void beyond the cliff, slowly waving it left and right.
The screen remained a dim gray, showing no changes whatsoever.
"Tch." She retracted her arm, glancing at the unresponsive screen. "Beyond detection range."
She hooked the device back onto her waist.
"She shouldn't break that easily," she muttered in a low voice, as if reaching a conclusion. "I'll go back and have them send a few snakes to search."
Having said this, she turned around, intending to examine the strange bow she had just seized.
The precious sword she had casually tossed aside on the ground was still there, lying quietly. But the bow was gone.
A trace of extremely faint confusion flitted across her face. She walked forward, bent down, and picked up her own sword. As her fingertips brushed the ice-cold hilt, her thoughts raced rapidly.
It is absolutely impossible that my eyes deceived me. I definitely seized that bow and held it in my hand. That machine... must have other means.
She began to recall the intense pursuit just now. She noted that the machine had been holding an object of ancient style—it was of Liyue design...
That thing seems to possess the ability to make items vanish into thin air and appear out of nowhere. The miscellaneous debris that suddenly appeared earlier, and the bow that has now disappeared without cause... it all fits.
Ikhtiyar immediately turned around, retracing her steps at a brisk pace along the path she came from. She re-entered that passage.
The pile of obstruction rocks she had incinerated to ash with the "Fire of the Two Worlds" was still there, the air lingering with the smell of scorching.
She searched that area carefully, her gaze sweeping over every corner, using the tip of her sword to push aside the ashes.
Nothing. That Liyue-style object was not there.
She continued deeper, returning to the cavern where she had first encountered Coppelia.
The scattered, broken furniture was still there, maintaining the messy state of having been split open and knocked flying. But the people who had originally been lying in the cavern were gone.
...
At the bottom of the deep underground pit.
A Moon Spirit hovered in mid-air, using its long, soft braids to coil around that ancient bronze mirror.
It aimed the mirror face at a patch of sandy ground below that was clearly sunken, and with a slight shift of will, the thick layer of sand vanished instantly, revealing Coppelia, who had been half-buried underneath.
The weight pressing down on her body suddenly disappeared. Coppelia's eyelashes trembled a few times before she slowly opened her eyes.
Two Moon Spirits floated directly in front of her. One of them extended a braid, offering the coiled bronze mirror to her.
Coppelia did not reach out to take it. She looked at the two Moon Spirits before her, a look of joy surfacing on her face.
She turned her head to spit out the sand in her mouth and praised the Moon Spirits, "Well done."
But this brief joy was like thin ice under the sun; it melted away rapidly.
There were only two Moon Spirits in front of her.
"The third one..." She paused. "What happened?"
The two round heads drooped low. Their braids, which usually swayed lightly and happily, hung down limply, and the pair of small wings atop their heads sagged.
Silence spread through the cold air for several seconds.
Coppelia averted her gaze. "We cannot stay here."
She had intended to go directly to bring in reinforcements—Greater Lord Rukkhadevata might help—but this was the territory of the Scarlet King. She might not be able to get her subordinate forces to come here. Moreover, the Scarlet King was attempting "transgression." If he knew someone underground was meddling with the Abyss, it was hard to say whether he wouldn't join forces with Khaenri'ah...
After thinking it over, she decided to move to a hidden location first. Once safe, she would have the Moon Spirits try the method of using the bronze mirror to bring Columbina out. If that didn't work, she would go to the surface and find a way to call for help.
She looked at the Moon Spirit holding the bronze mirror. "Store me inside the mirror. Then find the most hidden crevice or cavity that only you can squeeze into, and then let me out."
The Moon Spirit understood. It aimed the mirror face at Coppelia. With a flash of light, Coppelia vanished.
Then, it "dumped" the large pile of sand it had just stored back into the bottom of the deep pit, leaving it exactly as it was.
Having done this, the two Moon Spirits partnered up and flew toward an extremely narrow fissure on the rock wall of the deep pit, quickly vanishing within it.
Once again inside the boundless sea of clouds within the bronze mirror, Coppelia lay directly upon the soft, flowing surface of the clouds.
She planted her hands to support herself. The mechanical structure of her waist and abdominal core emitted faint grinding sounds. Bit by bit, with great effort, she pushed herself up from a lying position to a sitting one.
She first checked the items stored in this space.
Amos's Bow had returned, lying quietly on a wisp of cloud not far away.
The black-robed researcher was there too, his hands and feet still bound by vines, maintaining his unconscious posture with no signs of waking.
Kelvin lay on his side further away, his back to her. He seemed unaware of Coppelia's entry and was still futilely twisting his body, attempting to break the vines on his wrists and ankles. But this cloud sea space was empty; there were no rocks, no sharp edges. He twisted for a while, eventually exhausted his strength, and gave up struggling, though his chest was still heaving rapidly.
Coppelia looked away and began to examine her own body.
The loose black clothes stripped from Kelvin had already been shredded into tattered strips during the fall and impact, hanging from her body in strands.
The tactile sensation and temperature perception of her back and limbs, originally sensitive, now returned extremely weak feedback. She could barely capture any signal.
She reached back and touched her exposed back. Her fingertips met with an uneven, bumpy texture. The skin there had completely shattered, revealing the metal skeleton underneath. The skeleton itself had multiple dents and damages, and fine sand that hadn't been shaken off was wedged in the crevices.
She pressed her hands against the ground again, engaging her waist and abdomen, attempting to stand up.
The joints in her legs made a harsh grinding noise, but her body had only lifted halfway when she collapsed back down weakly.
Am I broken?
Her heart tightened, and she immediately lowered her head to carefully inspect her limbs. The bionic skin on her arms and legs was also severely damaged, covered in scratches and splits. However, the basic mechanical structure appeared to be intact, and the joints could still bend and extend, though the movements were no longer fluid and carried a distinct sense of stagnation.
She closed her eyes and sank her consciousness into the energy circuits within her body.
As expected. The flowing energy was as thin as a stream about to dry up, barely enough to maintain minimum conscious activity; driving her limbs seemed a struggle.
She lifted the tattered strips of cloth on her abdomen. The Moon Spirit that had been powering her all this time still had its head buried in the hole in her abdominal cavity.
But at this moment, its exposed body and two long braids displayed a listless, limp state. They hung down low, their faint glow dim, like a candle in the wind.
Coppelia reached out and gently pinched one of the braids.
The Moon Spirit's body only trembled extremely faintly in response.
She looked at this withered Moon Spirit and froze for a few seconds.
It's time to let it rest.
She lay flat on the cloud layer again. With a movement that was almost tender, she wrapped her arms around the Moon Spirit's exposed, ice-cold body. Then, slowly, she pulled the Moon Spirit out of the gap in her abdomen.
The instant the powering Moon Spirit left her body, the light before Coppelia's eyes began to dim, bit by bit.
____
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