The truth was, Ye Xi held no particular opinion about these Demon Gods of the old days. Loathing? Not quite. Fondness? Even less so. They were Gods too, after all — Gods who, back when they took part in the Demon God War, had either lost outright or fled, and so ended up out here in the Dark Sea.
Having fled in disarray and ended up among the losers, it followed naturally enough that they would forfeit their territories and their peoples, and drag their broken fortunes into exile here. In that era, fists did the talking. The strong stayed. The weak left.
The Demon God War that The Heavenly Principles had provoked was brutal, and it was hardly fair to these Gods — but there was nothing to be done about that.
And when he thought it over carefully, the fact that they still refused to accept it, that they wanted to seize back their old lands and fight their way home from the Dark Sea, was reasonable enough.
The problem was that Teyvat was small. There was only so much land to go around. Carving it into seven nations was already stretching it. Let this lot return, and wouldn't all seven be torn apart? They had already lost. So they could stay in the Dark Sea and make the best of it. There was simply no other way.
So Ye Xi felt a certain sympathy for these Demon Gods, a certain regret — and nothing more than that.
Right now, several of them were eyeing him with murder in their gaze, sizing him up.
All of them were guessing at what he was.
Seeing Raiden Ei about to strike again, the Demon Gods bristled, weapons ready. Ye Xi caught her arm. "Wait. The way I see it, there's no reason we can't sit down and talk."
Something had just occurred to him.
The Dark Sea held far more than the handful of Demon Gods in front of him. They scraped out a miserable existence here, and of course none of them were content with it — every last one dreamed of returning to dry land and taking back what had been theirs. This Beast Tide had been organized and launched by these few. Driving them back would only buy time.
What if another alliance of Demon Gods simply did it all over again?
Not that he couldn't wipe them out to the last — it was only that Ye Xi had no real grudge against them. If the thing could be settled peacefully, why not?
At his words, Raiden Ei lowered Musou Isshin.
The Demon Gods, however, stayed braced as if facing an army.
Moments ago a single nail from Ye Xi had pinned one of their number into the depths of the sea, and to this hour no one knew whether that God lived or died. Power like that was not to be taken lightly.
"Everyone," Ye Xi said, "I have a proposal."
"The reason you want your territories back is simply that you want a better place to live, somewhere to raise your peoples."
"As it happens, Liyue has an adept art — a technique for creating a Realm, a pocket world of its own."
"How about each of you takes one Realm, and makes your home inside it?"
The idea had come to him on the spot.
Apep, the Dendro Dragonlord, had settled her own people inside the Heart of the Oasis. These Demon Gods were no match for the Dragonlord clan, of course, and possessed nothing like that miraculous power. But a Realm was a vast space all the same, and letting them move in and settle down was hardly a bad solution. Besides, a Demon God's divine strength was nothing to sneer at; maintaining a Serenitea Pot would cost them next to no effort.
One of them, a bird-shaped Demon God, was having none of it. "On whose authority!" it barked. "We want back what belongs to us, nothing less!"
"And what exactly are you? Not a Demon God, not a human — and yet you dare to meddle in the affairs of Gods!"
"Well said. What qualifies you to interfere in the Demon God War?!"
Raiden Ei's brow furrowed at that.
"There's nothing worth saying to creatures like these. Cut them down here and now, and every problem solves itself."
The urge to kill had risen in her. Taking on this many Demon Gods alone would be a thorny business.
But if she pressed on, it could be done.
[Author's Note: Asking for flowers 00]
Ye Xi, however, answered in a perfectly level voice. "I'm not offering you a multiple-choice question. What I tell you to do, you do."
"All of you will obey me."
"As for qualifications..."
He knew that if he wanted these Demon Gods to sit down and listen, he needed something that would put the fear into them.
With that thought, he summoned his Stand.
Stand User! The World!
[TheWorld!]
A low hum — and in an instant, time turned ashen grey.
Everything, everywhere, stopped moving.
The mist on the water no longer drifted. The soldiers locked in battle with the sea-beasts were nailed where they stood.
In the sky, not one Demon God — not a single one — could shift its body by so much as a hair.
Not even Raiden Ei.
Everyone present was a Demon God, and the Power of the gods ran in all their bodies. So while their limbs would not answer them, their eyes could still dart about.
They kept their minds. And in that moment, every one of them, frozen in place, felt terror flood through them.
Panic filled their eyes.
[What's happening? Why can't I move?!]
[What kind of power is this?!]
[He stopped time! He actually stopped time!]
[What?! Then is he — is he the Archon of Time?!]
[The Authority over time itself! Heavens above!]
[Could he be The Heavenly Principles?!]
[That nail just now — that was exactly the sort of trick The Heavenly Principles would use!]
The Demon Gods traded glances, every one of them stricken with horror.
Even Raiden Ei was shaken.
She had witnessed the power of stopped time before, but she had never imagined it could be this suffocating, this terrifying.
As a God she at least retained her senses. Ordinary humans were reduced to nothing more than Background.
...
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