"Eternity..."
Hearing the Shogun's words, Ei's emotions flickered into something uncertain.
She was quiet for a long time, and a trace of bitterness rose within her.
Every principle the Shogun held had been laid down by Ei's own hand and refined over years into something rigid and complete. She didn't need to hear what the Shogun would say. She already knew exactly how the Shogun would respond to the state she was currently in.
The fortress she had built herself had become the walls now trapping her inside.
Fair enough, she supposed. She had made this bed.
Ei exhaled and did not draw her blade to face the Shogun.
The Shogun's brow creased. Her voice was flat.
"Take up your weapon. Fight me."
"The correction of Eternity must be carried out."
"Only Eternity is closest to the Heavenly Principles!"
This time, hearing those words, Ei felt an even deeper embarrassment.
Only Eternity is closest to the Heavenly Principles?
Had she not said exactly that herself, many times over?
A way of speaking she had used to evade reality. But now...
"There is no such thing as absolute Eternity, Shogun. I was wrong. And so are you."
Ei looked at the existence across from her, the one that wore her exact face, with a complex expression.
"The fundamental nature of life is that it is a journey toward inevitable ruin, like a flower that blooms for a single moment."
"Everything born from life is likewise destined to fade like a fleeting burst of fire."
"Eternity was a flawed premise from the very beginning."
By now Ei had seen and understood far too much. She finally grasped how small and unremarkable the so-called Heavenly Principles truly were.
And how fantastical the notion of Eternity had always been.
Looking back at who she had been, Ei felt nothing but embarrassment. Too naive.
Only Eternity is closest to the Heavenly Principles?
How laughable, said aloud.
Even the Heavenly Principles had been outmaneuvered and calculated against by the First Throne. What kind of Eternity was that?
Even the First Throne, with all its power, dared not claim Eternity.
Strictly speaking, even Teyvat itself could not be called Eternal. It was nothing more than an unremarkable world on the Imaginary Tree. And the Imaginary Tree itself could not claim Eternity.
She was a minor archon of a minor world. What standing did she have...
The fundamental nature of all things was to move toward decline and destruction.
Eternity never existed in the material world. Yet to say it did not exist at all was also not quite right...
"Nonsense."
It was hopeless, of course. The Shogun was a puppet Ei had created, and every behavioral principle within her had been built around the pursuit of Eternity. A few sentences could not pull her back.
Ei exhaled. She knew, in the end, there would be a fight.
She glanced back at Makoto. Her sister smiled and gave a small nod.
"Go ahead, Ei."
Ei stepped forward and looked steadily at the Shogun.
"Eternity was a mistake I made. That mistake must be severed by my own hand."
"Watch closely, Shogun. See what I have gained through change."
Lightning bloomed at her chest. Musou no Hitotachi emerged slowly. Ei half-closed her eyes and set her hand on the hilt.
Surging lightning unfurled freely, then gathered into a single column of thunderlight that swept the mist from every direction.
She reached back and drew her Iaito with her other hand.
Standing with a blade in each hand, facing the Shogun across the silence, she had the bearing of someone who could hold a pass alone against ten thousand.
Ryen's expression brightened. Something in his mind clearly activated.
"On the question of Eternity..."
"The twin blades will provide the answer!"
He filled in the second half of Ei's sentence before she could finish it herself.
The atmosphere, which had been gathering appropriate weight and solemnity, was abruptly made strange by Ryen's interjection.
Ningguang and the others exchanged awkward looks and immediately began physically herding Ryen toward the back of the group.
The interruption broke something in the moment. The confrontation between Ei and the Shogun lost the needle-against-wheat tension it had been building toward.
What it became instead was...
A pure exchange. A debate carried out through blades.
The two regarded each other for a long moment. Then, in the same instant, both moved. Two arcs of peerless lightning met.
The ringing of blade on blade rang out through the space, and both figures vanished from sight entirely.
To Lisa and Ningguang and the others, there were only afterimages, and flashes of steel too brief to follow.
Ei and the Shogun knew each other completely. Every technique the other used was an instinct engraved in their bones.
No need to hold back. No worry about being too much for the other to meet.
From the first move, both were at full strength.
In this space, the Shogun was Ei's most perfect opponent.
This fight was not only about correcting her past mistake. It was a test of everything her martial path had become.
After all, aside from herself, even Makoto could not be said to understand her fighting style completely.
The battle between Ei and the Shogun was genuinely spectacular, every movement lethal and natural. But from where Ryen stood, it was not something he could particularly enjoy.
He had not yet encountered anyone who could make him throw a second punch. Combat held no real pleasure for him.
For everyone else present, however, this was a fight worth witnessing.
Most of those watching were practitioners of magic, with Hu Tao alone in the close-quarters role. But they all carried Iaito now, and there was always something to learn about swordsmanship.
Ei was at the summit of the blade path. Watching her fight would mean something.
Or so Ningguang and the others had assumed.
In reality...
"Ah..."
Ningguang let out a helpless sigh and pressed her fingers to her aching brow.
"I can't see them. They're moving too fast."
"And their fighting style is identical. The technique is at a level I simply cannot follow."
Ryen reached over and gave Ningguang's head an easy pat.
"If you can't follow it, don't strain yourself. Ei's swordsmanship is not at a level any of you can currently comprehend."
"I anticipated this, to be honest. I simply didn't expect them to be this fast. Even focusing completely, there's almost nothing to see."
Ningguang gave a wry smile. She had thought that even if she couldn't match an archon, her current state with all the MC World's enhancements would at least put her somewhere in the vicinity of an archon's threshold.
Apparently not.
Being near an archon's threshold was one thing. The gap between that threshold and Ei was wider than the gap between an ordinary person and that threshold.
Ei was at the pinnacle of the blade path, and she was also a top-tier archon. She might not reach the First Throne's rulers, but she was without question among the strongest beings currently standing in Teyvat.
It was simply that Ei rarely demonstrated her full strength freely, and in the MC World that full strength was suppressed by the world itself. Only here in Teyvat, in full condition, could her true level be seen.
Thinking about it carefully: if Ei was this powerful, then Zhongli, who in the old days had suppressed both Ei and the Pyro Archon together at the gathering of the Seven...
Ningguang gave a small shake of her head. That was a level she could not begin to imagine.
"It looks like Ei is actually enjoying herself."
Guizhong scratched her cheek and muttered.
Ei's gaze was as still as deep water throughout the fight, and yet somehow Guizhong could feel the excitement beneath it.
"Of course she is."
Makoto smiled slightly, entirely unworried.
"Ei's greatest love has always been the sword and the fight. We are twin archons. I govern. She battles."
"And yet across all of Teyvat, there have never been many who could be a proper opponent for her."
"Zhongli could, but Zhongli has always been measured and still. He rarely moves against anyone, and even then, an actual exchange like this is almost unheard of."
"When Ei had first mastered her blade path and appeared at the gathering of the Seven, she challenged Zhongli. He didn't want to accept."
"In the end, when the decision about Mora becoming Teyvat's currency had to be made, Zhongli was finally forced to accept the challenge from Ei and the Pyro Archon together."
"That battle: Zhongli suppressed them both completely within five hundred exchanges, like breaking dry wood."
"Ei was quiet for a long time afterward. Though in some ways it was good for her. After being so thoroughly beaten by Zhongli, she became more grounded."
"Her swordsmanship continued to advance, further and further, until even I can no longer follow it."
"But afterward, Zhongli refused to engage no matter the circumstances. With the few people in Teyvat who could actually be her opponent unwilling to act, Ei has had a difficult time."
Makoto exhaled with quiet resignation.
Ryen blinked, then said cheerfully:
"Why not spar with me? I would be happy to practice with her."
Everyone went silent. Several pairs of eyes settled on him with complicated expressions.
"What? You think I'm not qualified?"
Ryen looked at Makoto with mild irritation.
"No, it isn't that..."
Makoto looked at him with barely concealed amusement.
"Setting aside that you don't know any sword technique or martial form whatsoever, your raw strength is already beyond what Zhongli can withstand. Let alone Ei."
"She is looking for a training partner who can help her sharpen herself. Not someone who will end things in a single movement."
Ryen curled his lip and looked at Ei in the distance with an expression of genuine regret.
"What a shame then. Who knows when I'll see someone draw a blade from their chest again."
Truthfully, the moment Ei had drawn Musou no Hitotachi earlier, Ryen had very nearly charged over to pull it out for her.
Hearing Ryen's wistful remark, Makoto's cheeks colored faintly. She treated it as something she had not heard.
She settled herself and turned her attention back to the increasingly intense exchange between Ei and the Shogun.
As Ei's sister, Makoto understood perfectly.
Ei had fully entered her combat state now. She was happy.
To find an opponent like the Shogun, one who knew her blade path from the inside out and whose style and level matched her own exactly, was a gift beyond imagining for any practitioner of martial arts.
Ei was not without the ability to end this in a single strike.
Whether through the Iaito or her staff, a well-timed decisive blow could suppress the Shogun with ease.
But what she wanted now was to communicate through pure martial exchange.
This was respect for a worthy opponent.
Sweeping the Shogun's polearm aside again, Ei pressed immediately toward her center, the blade as fast as lightning.
And once again the Shogun deflected it with complete composure.
Ei moved to close the distance, but the Shogun frowned and stepped back, standing still at a measured distance, watching Ei steadily.
Ei stopped. She looked at the Shogun with puzzlement.
"Why have you withdrawn?"
The Shogun was quiet for a moment.
"You do not appear to be suffering from erosion. And you have no intention of destroying me. You are simply exchanging blows with me to refine your martial path."
Ei gave a small nod.
"My erosion was fully resolved long ago. I said so before we began. I am not being eroded."
"Relinquishing Eternity is my attempt, however belated, to correct the wrong I committed."
The Shogun looked at her steadily for a long time. Then she raised her polearm again.
"Whatever the circumstances: my purpose is to enforce Eternity. Even if you are free of erosion, relinquishing Eternity remains a violation of the principles I was made to uphold."
"I am the instrument through which you maintained Eternity. Whatever you choose, only by defeating me can you do as you wish."
Watching the Shogun's battle-intent surge again, Ei lowered her blades with a complicated expression.
"Shogun. You are not an instrument."