Chapter 47: Chapter of Water and Sky (Part 7)

"What the heck?! So it's fine just like that? How much do people hate the Fatui?"

Axue couldn't help but laugh.

"And that Second Harbinger, the Doctor—what did he do to piss off the Supreme Bishop so much? Not only does the Supreme Bishop kill him on sight, but he also teaches his subordinates to kill him whenever they're in a bad mood. Is he really that hateful?"

"I don't think it's hate."

"Yeah, it doesn't seem like hate. Hate wouldn't manifest like this."

"True. If it were hate, the Supreme Bishop would probably hunt him down across the world."

"The way it is now, it's less about hating the Doctor and more about... disgust?"

"Exactly! It's not hate, but the Doctor definitely disgusts him. Killing him once just feels refreshing."

Axue thought the viewers made a good point.

When the Supreme Bishop met the Doctor, there was no sign of hatred. In fact, it was more like he completely ignored him.

Yet, despite the indifference, he casually killed him, while completely ignoring La Signora, who was right there.

It felt like kicking aside a pebble on the road because it was in the way—that kind of vibe.

This made Axue even more curious. What on earth did the Doctor do to disgust the Supreme Bishop to this extent?

As she pondered this, Themis finally arrived at their destination.

After being brought down from the sky by Themis, the animated cutscene ended, and the game transitioned into dialogue.

Paimon: "This is Mondstadt, right?"

Themis: "This is one of the Doctor's bases, discovered by the Fontaine Water Dragon Division. One of the Doctor's segments has been conducting experiments here."

Lumine: "Segments?"

Themis: "The Second Harbinger, the Doctor, is an extremely mad individual."

Themis: "Even within the same person, different ages can have different perspectives."

Themis: "Based on this theory, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the world, the Doctor spent decades researching the Sixth Harbinger, Scaramouche, and finally achieved a breakthrough."

Themis: "He preserved 'segments' of himself from different ages, turning them into independent entities, retaining all his perspectives on the world."

Themis: "All segments are Dottore. There's no distinction between the original and the copies—they're just Dottore at different ages."

"Wait, so that's what 'segments' are?!"

As Themis spoke, Axue's eyes widened.

"This... this is just... insane?"

It was indeed insane. Just hearing about it made the Doctor seem terrifying.

After all, if this were true, it wasn't a matter of clones or originals. Every segment was both a clone and the original—they were all just different versions of Dottore.

Even the original Dottore, who created all the segments, had become just one of the segments—albeit the one at his peak.

Whether he was strong or not was another matter, but he was definitely hard to kill.

Without a true original, there was no concept of killing the main body and having all the clones disappear.

Even if the peak segment died, another segment would quickly grow to a new peak and create more segments.

In other words, unless you killed every single segment, you couldn't truly kill Dottore.

And more importantly, the Doctor was practically a one-man army!

Among his segments, it was unclear how many had god-level strength, but just based on the earlier story, even a single segment was confident enough to take on Fansetty—just thinking about it sent chills down one's spine.

Even if only two or three segments had god-level strength, that was still an utterly terrifying prospect.

No wonder Snezhnaya was widely regarded as the strongest nation. Just the Doctor alone was enough to make people tremble in fear.

"There's no need to worry too much."

Sensing Lumine's shock, Themis spoke calmly:

"Creating a segment requires a massive amount of resources, time, and effort. After hundreds of years, Dottore only has a few dozen segments. On average, it takes ten years to create one. Kill one, and there's one less. If you become his enemy, as long as you kill them faster than he can make them, you'll eventually run out of segments to kill."

"...But aren't you the one who's about to become his enemy?"

"You're right." Themis nodded without arguing. "So let's go in."

The dialogue ended, and a glowing point appeared at the base of the mountain. Axue controlled Astrea to approach and interact with it.

As expected, the Story Quest's customary dungeon battle began.

Axue was excited.

"Here we go! We get to try out Themis! Limited 5-star character trials should be in Story Quests—it's more immersive that way."

Sure enough, after Axue entered the domain with her team of Astrea, Barbara, Ganyu, and Qiqi, Themis officially joined the party.

Axue wasn't in a hurry to proceed. She immediately checked Themis' profile.

[Profile]

Themis

CV: Jingliu

Birthday: May 5th

Affiliation: Holy Knights

Original Sin: Anemo

Constellation: Gemini

Second Knight of the Holy Knights, "Knight of the Sky," "Herald of Original Sin." A powerful knight deeply trusted by the Supreme Bishop, with the highest mission completion rate in the Holy Knights.

Character Details

Within the Holy Knights, the Knight of the Sky is the most mysterious member. She never appears before her comrades, who only know of her existence but have never seen her in person.

There's even a rumor within the Holy Knights that the Knight of the Sky is the executioner of the order. If anyone dares to betray the Hydro Archon or the Supreme Bishop, the Knight of the Sky will appear and utterly destroy them.