Chapter 20: The Fall of Khaenri'ah

[17 years old: One year after Rosalyne left Mondstadt, a war suddenly erupted. However, it wasn't a conflict between Mondstadt and other nations, but a war between humans and gods. Or rather, it was a one-sided massacre of humans by gods.]

[The Seven Gods suddenly descended upon the capital of Khaenri'ah, indiscriminately slaughtering its people, regardless of gender, age, or status. Other cities also fell victim to the Seven Gods' wrath. Those who survived the attack became refugees, fleeing to other countries on the continent, including Mondstadt.]

[The influx of Khaenri'ah refugees brought immense challenges to Mondstadt's governance. These refugees harbored deep hostility towards Mondstadt because their homeland had been destroyed by the Seven Archons. Consequently, they frequently organized attacks on Mondstadt's villages.]

[One day, you received intelligence about the presence of suspected Khaenri'ah individuals near a village. You immediately led your guerrilla team there, but you arrived a step too late.]

[When you arrived, the village lay in ruins. The Khaenri'ah people had massacred its inhabitants indiscriminately—much like how the Seven Gods had done to them.]

After witnessing the devastation in the village, what will you do?

1.Search the village to see if anyone survived.

2.Lead your team to track down the Khaenri'ah people and make them pay in blood.

3.Split up: have your team search for survivors while you track down the Khaenri'ah people alone.

"Three choices?" Tsumugi Kujo looked at the options on the panel.

As an upright knight, I should choose the first option.

But Tsumugi felt strongly inclined towards the second option...

In the end, she decided, "I'll take the middle route—save people and hunt down enemies. I want it all!"

[You instructed your men to search the village for possible survivors while you ventured deep into the forest alone to track the Khaenri'ah people.]

[At this moment, you were grateful to your father for teaching you tracking techniques. You easily located the Khaenri'ah base hidden in a cave. There were only a dozen guards outside. You stealthily eliminated them and entered the cave alone.]

[Inside, you found more than twenty Khaenri'ah individuals. They were mostly elderly and children, with a few severely injured adults who could barely move.]

Realizing these people were the only remaining protectors of the refugees, you understood that without the guards, this group would have no means of survival. If they remained here, they would surely perish.

[There was no way to convince them to leave; after Khaenri'ah's fall, the Seven Archons had hunted down the survivors. If these people were discovered by the Anemo Archon, they would also face death.]

[Suddenly, the Khaenri'ah people in the cave began to wail and their bodies started to transform. Their skin darkened, their forms became shorter and more hunched, and their facial features distorted into grotesque shapes. They began emitting the breath of the Abyss.]

You recognized these creatures immediately—they were the most common monsters across Teyvat: the Hilichurls.

[The Hilichurls attacked you, but despite your daze, your training allowed you to instinctively defend yourself. The newly transformed Hilichurls were weak, and you easily defeated them all.]

[When you came to your senses, you were shocked by the sight of the dead Hilichurls. The realization of what you had seen churned your stomach, and you couldn't help but vomit as you clung to the wall.]

[Shortly after, your team found you and brought you back to Mondstadt. They assumed you were simply overworked and didn't know what had happened. You kept the truth to yourself, fearing that revealing it might lead Mondstadt to the same fate as Khaenri'ah.]

[Back in Mondstadt, Rostam noticed your distracted state and granted you a vacation. You used this time to reflect.]

Hilichurls are the most common monsters across Teyvat. Now that you know they were once humans, you wondered about their origins before the Khaenri'ah people were transformed.

The answer seemed clear: there might have been a country like Khaenri'ah that angered the Seven Gods, leading to its destruction and the transformation of its people into Hilichurls.

Why did the gods, who are supposed to protect humanity, destroy Khaenri'ah? The people of Khaenri'ah had done nothing wrong. They were merely trying to survive.

[You remembered the Khaenri'ah merchants who had traded with your father when you were a child. Khaenri'ah was underground, with scarce resources like sunlight, land, and water. Their food was limited, and they traded precious minerals for sustenance. When they received food from your father, they had always shown genuine smiles of gratitude.]

[They were no different from people in other countries, except that Khaenri'ah was a nation founded by humans without the influence of gods.]

You concluded that the Seven Gods united to destroy Khaenri'ah because it threatened their rule.

[In an instant, the world seemed absurd to you. The gods' actions contradicted their preached ideals—the "freedom" of the Anemo Archon, the "justice" of the Hydro Archon, the "kindness" of the Cryo Archon... Their supposed virtues seemed ridiculous now.]

["So we are nothing but playthings of the gods…" You muttered to yourself as you walked to the headquarters of the Knights of Favonius and proposed to Rostam that you resign.]

[You wished to leave Mondstadt and explore ruins around the world to validate your theory. If you were correct, there should be other human-built nations that had been destroyed by the Seven Gods.]