"This is impossible... How can this be?" Lumine looked at the "Lydia" clad in Abyss Armor, then at the real Lydia behind Venti, her mind going completely blank. "Which one is the real Lydia?"
Venti was also stunned, his arm protecting Lydia tightening subconsciously. His teal eyes were filled with confusion and wariness.
He turned to look at Lydia beside him. The girl was trembling all over with fear, her eyes filled with terror at the sight of "another self."
Then he looked at the knight whose helmet had shattered. Those cold eyes made his heart sink.
For a moment, he was actually a bit dazed, unable to tell which one was the snow-haired girl he was familiar with.
Aether's expression also became exceptionally grim.
He stared intently at that face, which was identical to Lydia's, his brow furrowed. "Who are you? Why do you have her appearance?"
The Abyss Knight raised her hand and brushed the snow-white hair from her forehead, a gesture identical to True Lydia's usual habit, but a cold smile curved her lips.
Her gaze swept over everyone present, as if savoring their shocked expressions, before finally landing on True Lydia.
"Who am I?"
"I am the only one who should truly exist in this world as 'Lydia'."
"And she," she raised her hand and pointed to the Lydia behind Venti, her eyes full of contempt, "is nothing more than a counterfeit who has stolen my identity, my memories, and even the fragments of my soul."
Hearing these words, Lydia trembled even more violently.
She clutched Venti's sleeve tightly, her voice filled with grievance and fear. "I'm not... I didn't... Venti, I'm not a counterfeit..."
Watching Lydia shiver like a candle flame about to be extinguished in a fierce wind, her lips having lost all color, the sound of her teeth chattering was exceptionally clear in the silence.
Even Venti, who had lived for thousands of years and witnessed countless storms, was completely flustered.
His teal eyes were filled with helplessness and heartache; the accusations of the "counterfeit" repeatedly cut into Lydia's already fragile nerves, each stroke pushing her one step closer to the brink of collapse.
Venti opened his mouth, wanting to say "You are the real one" or "I believe you," but he felt that all comforting words were pale and powerless.
The Abyss Knight slowly walked toward Venti, her footsteps on the stone ground producing a dull "thud, thud" that struck everyone's hearts like a heavy hammer.
A cold smile hung on her face, but the curve of her lips betrayed an indescribable eeriness. Only in her eyes, which were identical to Lydia's, burned a hatred that could incinerate everything.
She stared fixedly at Venti, her voice filled with accusations long suppressed: "When I was in the Abyss Rift, where were you?"
"When my limbs were bound by the Abyss's iron chains, the barbs embedded in my bones, and I endured bone-eroding pain day and night, where were you?"
"When I watched my soul being gnawed away bit by bit by the dark energy, and my consciousness was about to shatter into fragments, where were you then?"
She stopped abruptly, her snow-white hair dancing wildly in the wind. Her voice suddenly rose, carrying hysterical despair and madness: "You kept saying you would protect me, but what was the result?"
"You only protected this 'Good Will' incarnation, separated from my soul, who cannot even bear pain!"
"Yet I, the one who truly bore all the darkness for you and struggled bitterly in the Abyss, was completely forgotten by you!"
"No... that's not right..." Lydia's pupils suddenly constricted, her mind struck by a bolt of lightning as countless sealed fragments of painful memories surged forth.
In the pitch-black, lightless Abyss Space, she sat on the cold ground, her tears long since dried, leaving only numb pain.
Iron chains radiating dark energy bound her limbs tightly, their barbs embedded deep in her skin. Every breath pulled at her wounds, the pain nearly causing her to faint.
The Abyssal Black Miasma slithered into her body like a venomous snake, crawling through her veins and slowly eroding her soul, pulling her back and forth between conscious agony and the temptation of madness.
Finally, a faint and cold voice echoed in the darkness, carrying a lethal lure: "Join us, and you can end all this suffering..."
These forgotten memories engulfed Lydia like a tsunami.
She suddenly let go of Venti's sleeve, clutching her head tightly. Her body curled into a ball, her back trembling violently as she let out a heart-wrenching wail: "Ah! It hurts!"
"Don't remember it anymore! Please... don't come back!" The voice was filled with despair and pain, making one's heart tighten, and even the air seemed to tremble with it.
The Abyss Knight watched her agonized struggle, the smile on her face twisting further as a trace of morbid satisfaction flashed in her eyes, as if she were appreciating a carefully orchestrated "play."
She slowly raised her hand, her fingertips entwined with faint dark energy, her tone dripping with mockery: "Look at you, still so useless."
"This is only a ten-thousandth of the pain I've endured, and you've already broken down like this? What right do you have to Venti's protection, what right do you have to the name 'Lydia'?"
"Enough!" Venti could no longer hold back, the helplessness in his eyes instantly replaced by a towering rage.
He shielded Lydia fiercely behind him, the green Anemo energy surging wildly around his body, forming a massive cyclone.
Even the surrounding stone fragments were swept into the air, and the "whooshing" sound of the air being torn was exceptionally piercing.
A wind blade far surpassing any before suddenly condensed in front of him. The blade glowed with a faint golden light, its edges entwined with fine temporal patterns, and glimpses of past shadows could be faintly seen flashing by.
With this strike, he was truly enraged. He even dared to defy the laws of time, intending to completely erase the Abyss Knight before him from the timeline, so she could never harm Lydia again!
"Hmph, finally willing to use your real skills?" The Abyss Knight sneered coldly, her eyes showing no fear at all, but rather a hint of anticipation.
Just as the wind blade was about to strike her with a piercing whistle, the Abyss Armor all over her body suddenly began to shatter piece by piece.
Pitch-black ice shards flaked off her shoulders, arms, and legs, falling to the ground with a crisp clinking sound.
And the moment the armor completely shattered, a massive, suffocating Abyssal Black Miasma surged out from within her body!
The black miasma, like a giant beast breaking free from its cage, carried a sickeningly sweet stench of decay and instantly spread, completely enveloping the entire ruins.
The darkness surged in like a tide, obscuring everyone's vision in the blink of an eye. Not even the outlines of the people beside them could be seen, only the dense Abyssal aura could be felt pressing down on their hearts like a physical weight, making their breathing heavy.
"Lydia!" Venti instinctively reached out to grab the girl behind him, but he only touched the cold air.
Panic seized his heart. He hurriedly channeled his cyan-green Anemo to dispel the black miasma, but the dark energy was unnervingly strange, even able to directly devour Elemental Power.