Chapter Text
Xiao felt lonely. He has been feeling lonely for quite a while now.
Then again, he had also not been Xiao for a long time.
Right now, he was General Alatus. And he was fighting for the safety of Liyue.
General Alatus had no time to spare for emotions. He was fighting with his own life force, against all sorts of demons and creatures, and an entire onslaught of cursed armies as the land slowly wilted under its touch, every hour of the full clock. He was in charge of an army of his own, and he was responsible for them. No matter that he was losing soldiers every day, every battle. He could not let himself feel.
He could not let himself miss his fellow generals, miss his siblings, miss Guizhong or miss his Lord. He could not let himself grieve for his fallen fellow yaksha, nor could he let himself cry and yell in frustration. He had to remain perfectly level headed for those who still relied on him to stand, and for those who relied on him to protect them.
There was no need anymore for titles in their dwindling forces, but Alatus supposed he had become the highest graded military officer in Rex Lapis’ army. He did not feel like so. All he knew was that he needed to guide and protect all until his Lord returned.
The soldiers before himself. The humans before the soldiers.
General Alatus knew his duty.
It did not make it any less difficult. But he would fight until his very last breath.
He knew he had a clear advantage. Out of all the soldiers he directed, he was the only one who was used never to sleep, never to eat. He was also the most mobile soldier of the lot. Which meant that, as their superior, it was Alatus’ duty to make sure they would not fall dead out of adeptal energy depletion. When battles lasted too long, he was the one who went from one battlefield to the next so as to equilise the grounds and help in the most dire situations. He was the designated person to carry whatever meagre amount of dry food could be eaten in the few minutes between battles, making sure the supplies of water got to the troops, protecting evacuating citizens and supervising the entire process.
But even Alatus could not be everywhere at once, despite his gigantic amount of power. When he was fighting in Liyue, he was not fighting in Luhua. When he was fighting in Qingce he was not fighting at Aocang. Even though this Cataclysm was the first time Alatus had drunk so many medical draughts in one year, the retrieved energy did not nearly last him long enough to be everywhere all at once. That was simply impossible, even for a God. Alatus would know.
He lost people. Citizens, villagers, soldiers, civilian adepti. They dropped, one after another, like knocked off stones. He hated it. But he had no choice but to keep going. Until he too, would drop dead like a stone.
Alatus knew he could never be as good a general, or as good a marshal as Bosacius had been. Bosacius… was strong. Stronger than Alatus in many an aspect. Not only did he have strength, but his voice carried further, and he had this innate social gift that permitted him to raise people’s spirits with just a few words, or a demonstration of strength. His presence permitted him to attract the enemy and giving time for his soldiers to breathe. Alatus was simply too discreet, his power too quiet, and no matter how much he made himself the decoy, how much he fought, he was but a wind adeptus who had lost his wings.
Even from a strategic angle, Bosacius’ electro power would be more useful in wide range attacks, because Alatus had no way to avoid hitting his own soldiers.
But Bosacius was missing, possibly gone insane, and Alatus doubted the eldest yaksha would survive the surge of cursed remnants on the continent.
To hell with that. Alatus doubted even he would survive this much longer. And in the end, they would both die in vain, leaving the nation they had been tasked to protect at the verge of ruin.
Bosacius would be able to save all those soldiers. He would be able to save them and keep himself alive. But with Alatus, it was all a question of balance. If he took, then he must give. If he gave, then he must take. Alatus would never be able to save everyone.
Xiao wished Bosacius were here.
Alatus knew he needed Bosacius.
He would protect Liyue through this war. The question was, how much would they lose in the process?
When Morax was back from the carnage Celestia had forced him to participate in, when he finally came back to protect his own lands. How many of his people and of his adepti would be left? What would he say, when he found the land dreadfully empty? What would he feel?
Alatus!
He breathed in as he teleported, the air cutting against and within his flesh, and in an instant he was battling the abyss creatures next to a worn out Cloud Retainer.
“One shall soon be done in this place, but the corruption of death is quickly spreading from where one has vanquished one’s opponents,” she warned him sharply.
He wasted no time invoking his yaksha mask, sacrificing a large quantity of power in the beginning of his purifying ritual.
“Guili’s ruins are overwhelmed,” he asked Cloud Retainer succinctly, and with not another word, she took to the sky in her crane form, leaving him to his task.
The cursed remnants were different from God remnants, but Alatus, Cloud Retainer and the others had quickly understood that they corrupted the people and the lands all the same. Alatus had found out that it could be purified in a similar way he absorbed God remnants. A minor proportion was drawn within his soul just like karma through the purification, as Alatus knew the technique was not adapted to this kind of violent energy. But thankfully, despite the fact it attacked his consciousness more violently and savagely than Divine Resentment did, it was also quickly eliminated from his body.
However, Alatus suspected that was only due to his own strength of mind, and the length of his time bearing this kind of haunting. The other yaksha were… not as strong. It was not their fault, and Alatus would not blame them. The intensity of the curse could drive them mad in a matter of days. And Alatus could not permit them to die. He took on the responsibility of cleaning the highest accumulations of cursed remnants.
This is what it means, he thought, to taint godly power with humans, impure hands. It corrupts lands, it corrupts humans, it corrupts machines, and it even corrupts gods. He could not let it spread.
The Nuo Dance of Evil Conquering fit the challenge at hand, even though each time it struggled just slightly more. Alatus would not let himself fail. He would fight until Liyue was safe and purified.
His strength would last. His reserves were nearly infinite. He could last… hoped he could last centuries.
His soldiers could not.
“Pervases!” Alatus knelt on the makeshift camp’s ground as soon as he materialized from the wind currents, checking the fallen junior’s qi canals and inwardly cursing at their state. “I told you all to leave the remnants to me.”
“It’s fine, I…” the man gasped, attempting to smile despite his pain. “I was already… My wound won’t close, it was too late for me…”
“It’s too late,” Alatus- or Xiao, he did not quite know, hissed, “when I say it is.”
“Xiao…”
“Don’t,” he gritted through his teeth, focusing on the energetic stream of his junior.
The man looked older than he, despite being younger. He looked more tired too. Alatus knew that was because the level of cultivation of the yaksha was lesser than his own. But it was no reason to give up so easily on a life, even if it was fated to fade at an eventual point in time. Alatus focused.
“There’s been a reprieve,” he informed the camp. “Streetward Rambler is on her way. Hold on. I need all my soldiers alive and as well as can be.”
“Understood, General,” was the overall answer, before Alatus once again returned his attention to Pervases’ state.
“You do not need to…”
“I do,” Alatus shushed him solemnly, drawing on the tendrils of cursed energy he could feel within Pervases and reaching for his mask. “If you all die, and I die, Liyue will be defenseless. If I help you now and I die later, you will still be there. We must cut our losses.”
“You know what the better cut is, Xiao.”
And maybe Alatus was being Xiao right now, instead of the general he ought to be. Because he would not lose anymore friend to this catastrophe, not for something as stupid as this. He would not let them fall.
But then again, Xiao had always acted alone. The general in him knew better, that he could not do this on his own.
If he did, he would fall.
He invoked the mask.
Pervases jolted in his grasp, his eyes wide with panic, lurching upwards to stop him before Alatus pressed him back down, unyielding.
“Xiao, no! What are you doing!”
Was it not obvious?
“You will live another day, yaksha,” he told his companion firmly. “And if you don’t, your spirit shall not err haunting the living. I will make sure of it.”
“That is impossible! No one has ever succeeded in doing so! You cannot exorcise this one, Xiao- please, General Alatus, see reason! Agh!”
Pervases interrupted himself with a cry of pain as Alatus began a much more spiritual exorcism ritual than either of them were used to.
“It is improbable, but not impossible,” Alatus said strictly, completely focused and straining. “Because the God Remnants do not want to let go, and their remaining karma is much the same. But your soul is not yet forsaken, and I will make them leave it. I need you not to hold onto it. Let it go, reject it. You will live.”
“You…”
“Do it.”
Faced with pain, and Alatus’ unceasing determination, Pervases was forced to obey, closing his eyes much like his brother in arm and focusing inwards. The entire process felt as though Alatus had just dipped within his fellow warrior’s consciousness, exploring the stained stream of spiritual energy threatening to wash him away and bury him deep down, never to see the sun again. It rushed in his ears, lashed at him violently, and whispered harshly in his mind, but he held on.
The few attempts made before had been too dangerous to be reproduced. But Alatus knew better than anyone that he was the only one who had a chance at succeeding.
Alatus had never attempted this before. Exorcising a fellow companion in arms, taking their crushing pain and purifying it a second time, absorbing the remnants once more into one’s own body, and freeing the original holder. It was a dangerous operation that threatened both yaksha’s lives, but also could be seen as an aggression. After all, was it not a yaksha’s pride to carry on through pain and endless suffering? Was it not why they fought? Their very purpose?
Yet Alatus had no time left for such abstract concepts. It was a matter of life and death, for all of Liyue, and if he was successful here… if he was…
Alatus, contrary to all his soldiers and late fellow generals, was a dream eater. He was a peng, and although he had forgotten much, the innate instinct of digging gently, harmlessly into a being’s mind, searching carefully for the darkness within to remove it, stayed with him, and he knew. He was the only one with enough experience to find the corruption, resist it, and pull it out from Pervases and into his own body without sucking the very soul of his friend out in the same moment. Much like he used to swim in humans’ flow of consciousness, avoiding dreams or walking through them until he found the nightmares, and devoured them.
That was before he had been forced to devour everything, just as a careless exorcism could kill a yaksha. But he knew, the knowledge sat untouched in his deepest memories, in the purpose of his adeptal body. And he would make use of it. Now, if ever. Now, or it would be too late.
With a tightly restrained shout, he tore the divine hatred away, and it came almost willingly, to him.
It was… a success.
Pervases gasped for life, for sanity and for breath, for calm and reason, not yet understanding what had happened. But Alatus could feel it within his own soul. Pervases was free, for now.
Alatus had won this one battle.
“Xiao… what… how…?”
Alatus had no time to indulge him. He stood, calling for a nurse.
“Check this man in priority,” he ordered. “He may yet survive.”
Then, he turned, addressing the wounded.
“I shall come back for you.”
A miracle in a sea of battles, carnages, blood and angry spirits. Easily forgotten nearly by all.
Alatus kept it in his memories as he lost men in battles.
Alatus knew, despite the suffering it brought him, his mental reserves were near infinite. And his soul was already darkened, long before he had ever met Morax for the first time. After all, devouring the integrality of the dreams of fallen gods did mean taking in their consciousness, their ambitions, their emotions. Their hatred. It was different back then, but the price would always have been the same. He was long compromised. Now all he could do was save this generation of yaksha, and made sure they lived to see the end of this war.
How devastating, that he could not save all. And that those he saved might end up dying the very next day, the very next hour.
They were losing ground.
General Alatus!
The Stone Gate.
“What is it?”
“It’s Mondstadt. They are overwhelmed and asking for reinforcements!”
Barbatos and Morax were friends. The loss of Barbatos’ land could easily mean Liyue’s subsequent destruction.
But they did not have enough troops to send.
Even Xiao could not.
“The Chasm is about to fall,” he hissed a reminder at the adeptus, before directly calling out to the messenger knight from Mondstadt, whose human troops should not even be fighting cursed entities.
“How long can you wait?”
Mondstadt had the Four Winds, all forces to be reckoned, but of course they would never be enough in the face of this swarming disaster just barely waiting to engulf them all like a horde of undead.
The situation was dire.
“No more than a few minutes, respectable Yaksha,” the woman saluted grimly.
Alatus cursed under his breath.
He could not ask Lady Fujin, for she was already helping control the cursed tide at the Vale and beyond the shore. And Cloud Retainer was protecting the Adeptal Abode where the humans had been hidden. The other greater adepti, such as Moon Carver and Mountain Shaper, were already in difficult positions themselves. As for the rest, two had been touched by the spread the creatures carried through the lands and the seas, asking Alatus to give them mercy. As for Sky Bracer…
Alatus wished Sky Bracer had survived the Archon War. He wished Guizhong was here, too. No matter how much he told himself to keep his sentiments in line, he could not help the surge of grief and longing that burst through him in that instant.
“A few seconds.”
He was one with the wind, then to the next officer halfway across the region.
“How is the Chasm?”
The look he received was solemn and mourning.
“Even with your help, I doubt it would survive.”
How?
How had this come to be?
“The miasma had already corrupted the entirety of the underground without our knowledge. We tried evacuating the- the remaining humans, but our troop are surrounded, and it is only luck that has permitted me to find you, sir.”
They might all die. The humans, the yaksha, the other adepti, everyone might die, the land would burn inky and raw and screams of ghostly suffering would echo for centuries more across the continent because there was simply no way for Alatus to do anything-
He kept himself in check.
“I will see the situation for myself. Go to the Stone Gate and inform them of the situation, I will have arrived there before you. I will evacuate as many yaksha and civilians as possible and send the saved troops to Mondstadt, carry the change of plans with you.”
“Understood, sir. On the map, this is where-”
“An instant, please.”
He went back to the messenger knight at the Stone Gate.
“Expect waves of our army to arrive soon.”
“Understood, sir. I understand your situation, but please be quick.”
The humans were all out of their depths. He nodded in understanding before forcing the wind to carry him back to the very edge of Minlin.
“Tell me now.”
They were interrupted before Alatus could make the first rescue trip.
“General! General! Something happened!”
Both he and the officer of the yaksha turned in synchronization, alarm painted on their faces as a human – it was a human Millelith, those remained yet, Alatus thought with horror – guard ran up to them, breathless but still trying to speak through the suffocation.
“Great Sage who Conquers Evils, I- the Chasm! The situation changed! A…”
“Breathe fully, then speak plainly,” Alatus commanded him.
The human did as ordered before frantically attempting to explain again.
“A Yaksha appeared at the Chasm’s line of defense! He is tearing through the Cataclysm’s creations! The Chasm may yet hold!”
Alatus was not aware of the breath he had been holding. It escaped him ruthlessly, but he had no time for relief.
“Who was it? The yaksha you speak of, who was it? Answer!”
Losing his calm.
“I don’t know, respectable Sage! He has no name! I only know he was very strong, stronger than any other yaksha I have seen at work, except you sir! He is terrifying… and, and beastly looking!”
The thought came without his allowing it, piercing him with the sheer emotion it held singlehandedly.
Bosacius.
Alatus and the yaksha exchanged a quick glance.
“It cannot be,” his fellow warrior sputtered. “He has been presumed dead for no less than a century!”
“I will take it,” Alatus swore quietly, his composure coming back to him like steel under pressure.
How Xiao wanted to find him, run to him and make sure it was really Bosacius. If they had truly found him again, then he was not willing to let go.
But he was not simply Xiao. He was the last General, and he was leading this defense war. If Bosacius was at the Chasm, sane or not…
Mondstadt, then the Chasm.
At least, that was the first conclusion that came to mind.
“General Golden Peng, what should we do?”
The yaksha awaited his orders. All of them, they depended on him.
On him… on Alatus, the dream eating winged spirit. When they should always have been commanded by the Soaring Snake. But the General Vritras was…
Their General could be saved, Alatus realised belatedly.
Because Alatus had the power to do so.
If Alatus could save Bosacius, this war might just be won with less casualties. They might yet save the Chasm, and Mondstadt, and lose less people. Because Bosacius… Bosacius knew far better than Xiao, how to protect instead of destroy.
Bosacius’ return could change everything.
But was that really the right solution? Was it no Xiao’s sentimentality speaking for him? Was he being objective? If he lost himself in the process of getting Bosacius back, then would the result not be identical to what Alatus already had speculated?
He needed to think this through…
Except he had no time to spare thinking. It was Mondstadt or the Chasm, or both, and he needed to choose now.
“Where?”
“At the surface of the mining grounds, general-”
Alatus did not stay to listen to the rest. He rode the wind faster than he had ever before, landing in the middle of chaos and bloodshed, the grass fed with so much horror and guts that it might forever remain red. The cries of battle assailed his ears until he could not even hear anything in the wind anymore beyond the shouts and screams of either the abyssal creatures or his very own soldiers and citizens.
It did not take long to locate Bosacius in the thick of the struggle.
It took even less time to interpose himself in Bosacius’ way.
His eyes, the first thing he noticed behind the mask. His eyes were crazed. With no sign of recognition.
“Bosacius,” he shouted, stopping the quivers in his voice to remain steadfast.
He then had to deflect Bosacius’s third and fourth blades.
“Who… are you an enemy, too? Are you… threatening my country?!”
Another blow, and Alatus wasted no time locking them into a stare down, jade against jade.
“Do you not recognise me, Bosacius? Do not fight me. I mean only help.”
“I… I…”
The eldest yaksha struggled, bleary, in front of Alatus’ very own worn out gaze.
“I… must… I must hold the line… there is no alternative. I shall… I will…!”
“Yes,” Alatus closed his eyes for a fraction of second. “You shall. You shall fight and live. Trust me just one more time, Marshal. I will… free you, now.”
He invoked his own mask.
“You need only fight me to free yourself.”
Trust me.
We do not have long.
It was only the two of them in the center of the chaos. Just Alatus and Vritras. They had no time at all, but right now, somehow, it was just a general and his old marshal.
Just Xiao and Bosacius.
And then, their blades crossed again, as Xiao danced to the tune of their duel. A deadly duel that drew steaming elemental blood, blade crashing against spear and the spear thrusting back, reaching back to its target. A deadly dance as well. Of Evil Conquering. An exorcism, in all the ways that could be considered unconventional at best.
Xiao was walking the fine line between destruction and salvation. And he walked through the steps of the deadly dance, of the deadly line, as he followed that line until he reached it. The consciousness, the soul. What he had always been meant to walk.
“I will devour all your nightmares.”
Bosacius and he had always been at equal grounds. Except Xiao had never fought so much or so intensely in the long duration of his life, nor did Bosacius even fight him witless, tired and yet more desperate than a cornered beast.
Xiao knew they had no time. He forced more power out of his tortured body than he could ever dream to find in himself again. He needed…
…to finish this.
He drew his brother in arms close, knocking a blade aside, and plunged his hand into the man’s body.
Then, they both started screaming.
Because it was not a wave, nor a seatide. No. This, that flowed and screeched for release, to be freed and to be anchored, to take control and to destroy, was akin to the very ocean of lamentations that also inhabited Xiao’s own soul. And it was excruciating, in the way it wished, and almost succeeded in tearing the both of them apart, into little pieces and broken fragments until they were no more than puppets themselves.
It was enough to make a general yaksha lose their mind. It had made the most experienced of the yaksha general lose their mind.
But Xiao drew in another sharp breath in between two shouts of pain, his inspirations almost synchronised with Bosacius’ own, and because he could only be Xiao the adeptus in that single moment, he dug and dug under the surface of the ocean attempting to crush him into nothing, because surely that mind subsisted somewhere within.
There had to be at least one.
One dream.
And here it is.
I will take your pain, now.
Do forgive me, and forgive yourself. I, Alatus, am unkillable.
He came to, letting his head fall with a ragged groan of suffering and exhaustion, against the shoulder of the yaksha he had trusted most.
In battle they had met. In battle, they returned. Side by side… always.
“Ah… ah… Alatus…? Is that… ngh… you? What…”
And Xiao, in that precise moment, let his feelings overwhelm him fully for the first time in centuries. He chuckled, low and tired, genuine and yet full of irony.
The world burns around us. There is no time to grieve or cheer.
But you are here with me.
He allowed himself that one reprieve. Allowed himself this single moment, in Bosacius’ confusion, as a hand came to hold his shoulder, maintaining him on his feet for this second.
Then, he was Alatus again.
“I feel… so light…! Alatus! What happened to you!?”
He separated from the serpentine yaksha with a glare to his surroundings.
In the name of his God. The humans were right. This place… even with Vritras by his side, he could feel it. The corruption had struck too deep. The chance of saving the lands and the people were…
But they could not abandon the Chasm.
“The Cataclysm is everywhere,” he told Bosacius, exhausted but still sharp. “Thank you, for returning to us and fighting by our side.”
He dug a few vials out of his clothes, taking one for himself to replenish his energy and throwing the other at Bosacius, who caught it by instinct.
There was a flicker of recognition on his now maskless face.
“Right, the Chasm… I was, I am fighting, I have to… the people…”
Alatus made his decision.
“Listen to me, Vritras. Right now, I am your general, and the only person you must listen to, alright? You will go to Mondstadt, and the soldiers will go to the Marsh.”
“What… but what about here?”
This place was already dying.
“I will hold it for however long I can.”
For however long I must.
“Alatus-”
Alatus stuck their foreheads together, eye to eye.
“Liyue needs you now.”
It did not need Alatus. Liyue needed its Marshal to survive.
Alatus was a spirit of the wind, who had failed to save the lives of his last dozens of companions. But Bosacius, Bosacius might be able to save them.
He stared into Bosacius’s stunned eyes, hoping Bosacius understood everything he was not saying.
The Chasm’s situation was far worse than what Alatus had expected when coming here. He might not make it out alone. But all these soldiers, and Bosacius, they were needed elsewhere. Soon enough, Bosacius should understand.
Alatus had been alive for millennia of endless fighting. He would survive this one more fight.
Now was not the time for tears, for reunions, nor was it the time for goodbye. But there would be a time. Even if Alatus had to bring himself back as a ghost to make it happen.
For the first time in at least a millennium, he let himself smile.
It was nothing pretty. A sharp curve of the lips, the cutting edge of the warrior’s smile, meant for another warrior.
“For whatever it may mean,” he breathed out firmly, “I was glad to see you again.”
His golden eyes, pupil slit, intense, boiling molten. Meaningful.
He took a step back.
“I will hold the line of the Chasm. You are needed elsewhere… Bosacius.”
Alatus grasped upon his power, a connection so sore and worn from use, preparing for a massive teleportation. His reserves were almost endless, even as he was he could manage it. And he would need Streetward Rambler's vials in the near future, he knew it. He reached for the wind to carry his voice throughout the nation.
"To all yaksha and adepti. I leave the army's direction under the command of Marshal Vritras. Obey him and continue on fighting. Soon, Rex Lapis will come back."
Bosacius watched him, so very aware, confusing fading and leaving behind only traces of that determination Alatus knew so well, and the care. So much care expressed so readily in those familiar features. Reading the world again before him and finding meaning within it, understanding everything, the reunion and the goodbye, the urgency and the feeling of time slowing around them. Except nothing was slow. That instant had passed. Now reality was unwilling to wait, and they both knew it.
The strong man breathed in and out. Eyes wide, but understanding. Afraid but certain. His voice was deep and cavernous. And so familiar.
“I will come back for you.”
Alatus nodded.
There was no place for trials, attempts or endeavours in this cruel world. No time, no effort wasted.
“I will be there.”
Only certainty was allowed. Alatus had been a general for long, and just like Bosacius, he knew that pleas had no stead on the battlefield.
Only the strongest will could survive the tides of war.
“Now go.”
The citizens first, Bosacius with them. The remaining yaksha, however injured next. Alatus exerted his hold onto the wind, and managed to include the Millelith Soldiers.
One last glance.
Then, they were all gone, to the Stone Gate.
In battle they met.
In battle, they parted.
Alatus turned back to face the Abyss. He could still feel a few traces of human energy, especially underground, but he could not teleport any more people.
So as not to break his contract with Rex Lapis, Alatus would have to fight to keep them alive. And most importantly…
He would fight with all he was, putting his sanity on the line, because any price he had to give was acceptable if it meant the corruption never bridged past the Chasm.
“I shall take you with me, even to my death.”
Alatus was a yaksha who had made an oath, and yaksha did not break their promises.
With the jade of his spear, on the mountain side, he carved a message to his lord.
Then, the siege began.